“Data is the new oil? No: Data is the new soil.” OilDataSoilThought ProvokingData Science Author:David Mccandless
“Data is the new soil, because for me, it feels like a fertile, creative medium. Over the years, online, we've laid down a huge amount of information and data, and we irrigate it with networks and connectivity, and it's been worked and tilled by unpaid workers and governments.” FeelsYearsGovernmentCreativeInformationHugeAmountInternetWorkersMediumsDataSoilOnlineFertile Author:David Mccandless
“By visualizing information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes, a sort of information map. And when you’re lost in information, an information map is kind of useful.” KindInspirationEyeMotivationTurnsLostInformationLandscapeMapsVisualizing Author:David Mccandless
“Visualizing information is a form of knowledge compression.” FormInformationVisualizingCompression Author:David Mccandless
“For years I thought I was just a writer, but when I sat down to design and started playing around with it, I realized that, really, it's pretty easy. Obviously it's more than just a set of rules, but the basics of design are actually pretty simple and quite mathematical. The link between data and design works at quite a fundamental level.” EasySimpleDesignI RealizedMathematicalSat Author:David Mccandless
“If you want to visualize something in its fullness you have to look at every perspective and every angle, and that means - sometimes uncomfortably - looking at things you don't want to look at.” MeanSometimesPerspective Author:David Mccandless
“Often I forget that design is really about removing things: optimizing the flow of information, the display, so there are the fewest elements possible, but still they preserve the essence of the subject.” ForgetDesign Author:David Mccandless
“I have a computational quality to my mind, I suppose. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with video games. I reprogrammed games, and this eventually landed me a column in a magazine. That's how I got into print journalism: writing about video games.” WritingMindKidsQualityJournalismObsessedPrint Author:David Mccandless
“I was a freelance journalist, and it was a struggle because I had to pitch all the time, research, and stay on top of subjects.” StruggleJournalist Author:David Mccandless
“I started moving into online work, and that exposed me to design and the impact it has on the flow, shape, and narrative of the story. This got me thinking that maybe this is a way of doing journalism, a way of telling stories and revealing patterns.” ThinkingMovingDesignJournalismOnline Author:David Mccandless
“I remember researching a really complicated article and having trouble keeping track of all the different perspectives. I ended up drawing a diagram to help myself follow how the ideas were interrelated. I looked at the diagram when I had finished and thought, "Oh, maybe I don't need to write the article now - maybe I've done my job as a journalist. I can convey my understanding through the diagram."” WritingDifferentDoneHelpingRememberUnderstandingTroublePerspectiveTrackComplicatedJournalistDifferent Perspective Author:David Mccandless
“Sometimes the data has a sense of a structure within it, especially if I'm looking at networks or relationships, which generally lend themselves to a certain style.” SometimesStyle Author:David Mccandless
“I think it's good practice, if you're a writer, or anyone who's shaping narrative, to be flexible and open with the direction of the narrative.” Thinking Author:David Mccandless
“The classic one for me is one of my favorite images - left-versus-right political-spectrum image. I was trying to visualize the concepts on the political spectrum. I'm left-leaning, and I discovered as I was doing it that I had an impulse to make the left-hand side appear better than the right-hand side. That was manifesting in the way I was choosing certain words, framing certain ideas. I shared it with a few people, and they all said, "Oh my God, this is really biased." I hadn't seen it at all.” PeopleTryingPoliticalMy FavoriteImpulseClassicManifestBiasedFraming Author:David Mccandless
“I've been working on a graphic about carbon emissions. It's an incredibly simple graphic - a bunch of blocks and a table below it - but it's taken me three weeks to design. For some reason it just wasn't working. Then finally I realized there was a number present, which I was rendering in each version, that wasn't necessary for the understanding of the piece. This figure was getting in the way and distracting from the main flow of the narrative. As soon as I pulled that graphic out of the design, it sprang into focus. Suddenly it worked.” ReasonUnderstandingSimpleTakenFocusWeekDesignI RealizedBlockGraphic Author:David Mccandless
“Simplification seems to be the removal of objects for the goal of making a graphic as clean and uncluttered as possible. Whereas, with optimization, it feels like there's more intelligence in that. It maintains the usability, but tries to distill something down to its essence. But with some data-sets you have to be careful because, as with linear, print journalism, it's easy to shave off facts that don't quite fit the flow.” TryingEasyGoalFitCarefulJournalismPrintBe CarefulGraphicRemovalSimplification Author:David Mccandless
“There's a tendency in graphics to allow the trimming of certain parts. But I think that if you're open about your process, your methodology, such as introducing thresholds, introducing filters, techniques people use in research and data management, it's legitimate. It's legitimate to say, "We're only going to show data above this level, or between levels."” PeopleThinkingManagementIntroducing Author:David Mccandless
“Design has a powerful impact on the viewer. It has authority, and data also has the same air of authenticity and detail. It can be hard to argue with a graph, and it's hard to argue with data. So to combine data with a strong visual impact creates a powerful message.” StrongPowerfulDesignAuthorityArguingAuthenticity Author:David Mccandless
“We've seen it in the last U.S. presidential campaign 2016: both sides were trading graphs and circulating data visualizations to make their point. So the political establishment is waking up to the power of a good graph as well.” PoliticalWake UpPresidentialTradingVisualizationPresidential Campaign Author:David Mccandless
“I'm doing a lot of cognitive processing. I'm gathering research. I'm processing it. I'm arranging the data. I'm sorting out the narrative. I'm designing. It's almost as if I do all the cognitive work that you then don't have to do. I digest it, process it, and then offer something that's very easy for you to digest.” EasyDesign Author:David Mccandless
“It's enjoyable to just drink in an image. It's effortless. That struck me as an interesting way of looking at it: I do all the grunt work so you can enjoy.” EnjoyInterestingDrinkEnjoyableGrunt Author:David Mccandless
“I'm happy to provide that service. But that's the power of it. A good infographic that's been really worked on looks simple and easy, but it actually required a lot of processing.” EasySimple Author:David Mccandless
“I think everyone is struggling somewhat with presentation. The Internet is generally well designed, if you look at the most popular websites, so we expect our visuals to be at that level of quality. When you sit in a presentation and you're looking at nonsensical pie charts and the like, your audience does disengage. People across a range of industries, not just science, are struggling with their communication because their output doesn't compete with what people see on a day-to-day basis.” PeopleThinkingQualityAudienceStruggleCommunicationLike YouInternetWebsiteNonsensical Author:David Mccandless
“Some of the commercial work I do is helping people to improve their presentations and add some design thinking. There are so many amazing things in science, and such great data, which can often be locked away. It's in the minds of these amazing practitioners, who can't necessarily express what they want in a visual way.” PeopleThinkingMindHelpingDesignHelping People Author:David Mccandless
“What I tend to do is blend quantitative with the qualitative to allow me to plot the qualitative data in some way. It's a question of what quantitative data are most applicable. So I'm playing with that, merging the two.” Author:David Mccandless
