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Quote by 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.”

Author

David Mccandless

David Mccandless is a journalist, but the specifics of his life and career are currently unknown. more

“I always wanted to read. I always thought I was going to be a historian. I would go to school and study history and then end up in law school, once, I ran out of loot trying to be a history high school teacher. But my dream was always to place myself in a situation where I was always surrounded by books.”

Trying Book Dream School Situation Study Teacher High School Ran Historian Law School

Author:Junot Diaz

“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.”

People Trying Political My Favorite Impulse Classic Manifest Biased Framing

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.”

Reason Understanding Simple Taken Focus Week Design I Realized Block Graphic

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.”

Trying Easy Goal Fit Careful Journalism Print Be Careful Graphic Removal Simplification

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."”

People Thinking Management Introducing

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.”

Strong Powerful Design Authority Arguing Authenticity

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.”

Political Wake Up Presidential Trading Visualization Presidential Campaign

Author:David Mccandless

“If you're an older sibling and you have a younger sibling who needs mentoring or is afraid of the dark, you develop nurturing and empathic skills that you wouldn't otherwise have.”

Ifs Needs Dark Skills Sibling Nurturing Mentoring Younger Siblings Older Sibling

Author:Jeffrey Kluger

“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.”

Easy Design

Author:David Mccandless

Quote by David Mccandless

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