Exploring Creative Data Visualization with Nadieh Bremer

In this episode, I sit down with Nadieh Bremer to talk about her new book, Chart Art, and the creative process behind her data visualization work. We discuss how she structures the book around a spectrum from straightforward charts to full-on data art, and why uncommon chart types can communicate nuance so effectively. Nadieh shares insights from her time in a makerspace, how physical-making influences her digital work, and why sketching after exploring the data is so important. We also talk about client work, design decisions, and how she thinks about success in her projects. It’s a fun, wide-ranging conversation that highlights why Nadieh remains one of the most thoughtful voices in the field.

Resources

Guest Bio

Nadieh Bremer is a multi-award winning data visualization designer and data artist who once graduated as an Astronomer, started working as a data scientist before finding her true passion in the visualization of data. Having been awarded “Best Individual” in the Information is Beautiful Awards, and (co-)writer of “Data Sketches” and her new book “CHART,” she focuses on visuals that are uniquely crafted for each specific dataset, often using large and complex datasets while employing vibrant color palettes. She’s made visualizations and art for companies such as Google News Lab, Sony Music, UNICEF, the New York Times, Scientific American and UNESCO.

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Transcript

00:01.62
Jon
Holy moly. It’s Naughty Bremmer. What a treat.

00:08.71
Jon
ah

00:08.84
Nadieh
Thank you for having me. And thank you for that intro.

00:10.18
Jon
i I mean, it’s been, I guess, since before the pandemic when I last saw you, right? Is that right?

00:18.13
Nadieh
I think so. Yes. Was it maybe data sketches that came out in 2021? Did we discuss the book? I mean, I know we discussed the project.

00:24.27
Jon
We did, we discussed the bus. that’s That’s true. Okay, so I did see you then, but virtually, but in person, I probably haven’t seen you since I was in Amsterdam in like 2019.

00:35.19
Nadieh
and something or it was we also went to Potsdam I think was that yes but I don’t know when that was but also around that time

00:39.95
Jon
Oh, right for Info Plus. Yes, that’s, yes, that’s true. That’s around that time. I also got terribly lost trying to get to potsdam i think yes because i like got on i got on a bus and i got off too early and then i got on a train or something and like the train was like stuff was just and i don’t speak german or read it was very bad it was bad but i got there and i survived so anyway that’s in the past so good to see you congrats on the new book very exciting very big

01:14.97
Nadieh
Thank you.

01:18.60
Nadieh
Yes, it’s another big book. It’s again smaller than data sketches though, but it’s still, you know, big enough to put on your coffee table.

01:23.62
Jon
That’s, that’s true. That’s true. Are you, are is this like when you i mean, I guess because of the images, but when you, when you start conceiving of a book from the beginning, are you like, this is going to have to be like, you know, 15 inches tall?

01:40.33
Nadieh
Not necessarily, but I do want it to have like a certain presence, I guess.

01:44.01
Jon
Yeah.

01:44.53
Nadieh
But then no numbers attached to it, but just like I want it to be like a proper book.

01:44.86
Jon
Yeah.

01:47.22
Jon
Right. Yeah.

01:49.15
Nadieh
Hardcover.

01:50.20
Jon
and Someone’s going to have to adjust their bookshelf so that it can fit on there.

01:53.57
Nadieh
ye prefer Preferably. Or have it like laid at like 90 degrees and then laid so it stands out even more.

01:55.53
Jon
Yeah.

01:58.92
Jon
Yeah, that’s right.

01:58.97
Nadieh
Yeah.

01:59.80
Jon
That’s right. Yeah.

02:00.21
Nadieh
but

02:00.44
Jon
It’s the one that’s horizontal versus all the other ones.

02:02.13
Nadieh
Yeah.

02:03.01
Jon
Yeah. I gotcha. Okay. And then hard to get, cause you’ve got other stuff on top of it and then, but you know, it’s, it’s, it’s worth Well, it’s a lovely book. um I have a few themes that I picked out personally, but I think maybe the best way to start to give folks sort of a preview of the book and then I’ll get you like your, your take on some other more specific things, but like,

02:20.63
Nadieh
Thank

02:26.29
Jon
you have sort of like a kind of specific structure to the the narration or the navigation of the book is sort of fairly specific. because So can you just like give folks like an overview of, I guess, I mean, they’ll read the book, so we don’t need to walk them through but like your perspective on why you aren on ah why you wanted to build it in this but or write it in this particular way.

02:49.86
Nadieh
ah So in in general, I wanted to write a book about being more creative with data visualization and the things that i that work well in in my past that I like to use, like my personal tips, and maybe that will help for somebody else as well. but And when I started thinking about it I noticed that, well, being creative really depends on a lot of things.

03:09.79
Nadieh
And so I started seeing it as a spectrum. Like, well, you can be creative with the more straightforward business charts, but you can also be more creative if you’re making something where that’s meant for like a newspaper or even a museum, you know, all the way on the other end.

03:25.97
Nadieh
So I saw it as a spectrum between the sort of pure, well, not saying pure, like straightforward database and all the way towards like data art.

03:32.43
Jon
Yeah.

03:34.34
Nadieh
And I thought that would actually kind of help to to structure the book. So there are four parts, and it basically runs along this line of like adding a little bit of creativity, because you know you don’t want it to over and like overwhelm you in a way, just a little knot towards making it you know the main thing, that you that’s all you want to do.

03:49.00
Jon
yeah

03:54.58
Nadieh
So the spectrum from database to data art. And that’s that’s how the book is is set up.

03:59.62
Jon
Yeah, it’s it’s an interesting, I love how it gets you sort of this like period or exclamation point at the end on data art, which is like, you don’t just have to do line and bar charts. Here are all these other things that you, Nadi, have tried. And oh, here’s like, take it the next mile into this very fun, almost liberating like data art thing.

04:24.61
Nadieh
Yes, yes, I find, i mean, data art, it can also bring it back into database where in data art, it doesn’t matter if, you know, if you don’t have to explain the numbers or explain exactly what everything means, you can just try things, even try things that don’t really work well to visualize data.

04:25.51
Jon
Yeah.

04:41.09
Nadieh
But then sometimes I realize that I can take part of that and then tune it back down and put that back into my data visualization work to make that a little bit more creative. So Yeah, like you said, it a data art can just be freeing as ah as a hobby, as something you like to do, but it can come back to your work as well.

04:53.42
Jon
Yeah.

04:57.70
Jon
And you took, as I recall, you took like a maker lab course.

05:02.54
Nadieh
Yes, I did. i did. You know, it was it was COVID time.

05:06.83
Jon
Yeah.

05:08.04
Nadieh
was like, what do you do?

05:10.10
Jon
Yeah.

05:10.25
Nadieh
um yeah so So, yes, I i took 20 weeks. It’s a 20-week, basically half a half a year sort of sort no work and just focused on learning how to design electronics, but working with laser cutters, 3D printers, CNC machines, and just just making things physical.

05:17.79
Jon
Yeah.

05:29.84
Nadieh
it was I guess I needed that after, ah you know, like a decade of working purely digital, just learning how to make things in real life.

05:37.14
Jon
Yeah.

05:37.99
Nadieh
Yeah.

05:39.03
Jon
Yeah. Okay. So I have a bunch of questions about the book itself, but, but let me dig on, on the, on ah and the, on the makerspace stuff. So did you find that, that experience?

05:50.75
Jon
Oh, so I guess kind of two questions. So one, do you continue to do that sort of stuff? Like, do you, do you play around both like for fun and maybe for work? And then also have you found that that experience has helped inform the digital data viz work for clients?

06:06.72
Nadieh
I don’t do it that much still. That’s actually a little bit twofold. One is like life continues on if you’re back into work and and you have to find the clients to actually sell it.

06:17.05
Jon
Yeah.

06:20.89
Nadieh
So I have been trying to sell like more physical data art installations, but honestly, ever haven’t been successful.

06:25.45
Jon
Yeah.

06:27.64
Nadieh
So it’s only been personal things like so small laser cutting things, like making your own earrings. It’s like that kind of level of…

06:34.28
Jon
Yeah.

06:35.68
Nadieh
Stuff that is still… Maybe my own lights.

06:39.59
Jon
yeah

06:40.47
Nadieh
that That kind of stuff. I still haven’t been able to sell it to as ah as a client project. I think, honestly, might come down to, yeah, I don’t really have it in my portfolio. So I first have to do some proper projects in my own time.

06:51.31
Jon
Yeah.

06:52.40
Nadieh
But the physical projects also take just, you know, an immense amount of time and you need like the materials and the and right tools.

06:59.17
Jon
Mm-hmm.

06:59.49
Nadieh
Like I don’t have access to the laser cutter and c machine machine and the whatnot anymore as early as I had in those six months.

07:03.66
Jon
Yeah.

07:06.94
Nadieh
But they they have definitely given me a perspective on the the different kinds of, um what’s the word again, the different kinds of things you can run into that can go wrong when you are working on physical things.

07:21.78
Nadieh
like It’s not as easy to debug a like an actual physical chip where you maybe one of the actual little feet isn’t soldered well to the plate.

07:23.97
Jon
Yeah.

07:27.55
Jon
Right.

07:32.54
Nadieh
and

07:33.19
Jon
Right. Yeah.

07:34.06
Nadieh
it’s not as easy.

07:34.19
Jon
Once that’s messed up. Yeah.

07:35.72
Nadieh
Yeah, but yes. that

07:37.14
Jon
Yeah.

07:37.19
Nadieh
like and so i have ah I have a big appreciation for how much more difficult physical can actually be than than before.

07:41.47
Jon
Yeah.

07:42.71
Nadieh
And I still want to ah still want to make like physical data art. but But it’s like, it still it still remains on my wish list.

07:50.11
Jon
Yeah. I mean, I don’t know what it’s like there, but at least here, like commercial real estate, like, you know, I think also office buildings are not as full as they were a few years ago. So like finding the places to say, like, we would like a data art in our lobby where we had, you know, a thousand people coming in every day.

07:59.51
Nadieh
Hmm. Hmm.

08:08.00
Jon
And now we have 200 people coming every day. I can imagine businesses being like, well, maybe it’s a different game now, but yeah.

08:14.79
Nadieh
Yes. Yes. And then when you start talking with clients, they end up like, if you start explaining what comes down to it and then they’re like, oh, so maybe, maybe we do go for like the printed data art piece instead of like the 3d fabricated one.

08:27.60
Jon
Yeah, right. Like, oh yeah, let’s just do a poster. Yeah.

08:31.73
Nadieh
Yeah. Right.

08:32.64
Jon
ah Yeah. Yeah, because there are ah several pictures in in in your book of your work in and out like on the on the wall of an office building.

08:43.47
Nadieh
Yes, I do have a few of those, which I’m really, really happy.

08:45.41
Jon
Yeah.

08:46.91
Nadieh
those are like Data art is one of my favorite kinds of projects, especially if it gets to hang in real life somewhere.

08:52.54
Jon
Yeah.

08:53.50
Nadieh
Yes, especially really big.

08:54.16
Jon
Right, right. Yeah, really big. Yeah. Okay. So, all right. So um let’s, ah so you have these sort of like three, four, you have these four sections in the book.

09:04.82
Jon
um The first one that really kind of yelled out to me, unsurprisingly, is the section on uncommon charts. um And I’m going to read the sentence or the two sentences at the beginning of that chapter that like really,

09:20.21
Jon
hit me. So um you write in the in the beginning of the session to the book, I urge you to see if a non-traditional chart can convey the that underlying story more effectively and with more nuance and care.

09:31.13
Jon
Furthermore, because these often overlooked charts are less common, they can add a unique and creative flair that piques a reader’s interest, um which I think is like the perfect encapsulation of this kind of tension or trade-off between your like line bar charts versus these more bespoke different non-standard charts.

09:49.06
Jon
um So I was hoping you could talk a little bit about your process, either on your own, working with clients of this like decision to go, going to do line bar charts? Am I going to do something naughty bremer?

10:02.72
Nadieh
Yes.

10:03.60
Jon
Yes.

10:03.72
Nadieh
um i think It’s always trying to keep in mind like what is what are you trying to convey and can I convey this better with a different kind of chart or more interesting. So the examples that I gave in this in that chapter is for example a Sankey diagram to show flows because it is so good. Sankey diagrams are so good showing flows that you would say like there’s there’s no way to capture that really in a in a bar chart or a line chart properly.

10:30.18
Nadieh
But also another one is a tree map where in essence, I’m trying to show how all of the costs of a company are split down into their subcategories. And you can do that as a stacked bar chart.

10:41.41
Jon
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

10:41.83
Nadieh
But a tree map has the same idea of sort of showing parts of a whole. and it And it does that actually pretty well, as long as you’re not interested in the exact values and you’re just mostly interested in, oh, this one’s really big. That one is lot smaller and this one is the smallest.

10:58.46
Nadieh
It’s kind of more like keeping that in the back of your mind, like what are you actually trying to do? and And these these smaller things that that make make a difference, like how exact should people be able to read it and how quickly should they be able to read it?

11:10.57
Nadieh
So always it it comes down to taking the sort of this situation and the audience in in mind and then knowing which sort of uncommon charts to use.

11:21.07
Nadieh
Well, that comes down to sort of this mini chapter that I have as well, where it’s about, you know, learn about the different charts forms that are out there. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, know about the Sankey diagram, network diagrams, tree maps, Voronoi tree maps um and and Dumbbell charts and they’re so like there’s there’s websites that have more than a hundred different kinds of charts and if you have that in the back of your mind and you have a you know ah a base level of understanding when to apply these different charts but you know honestly just open one of these websites and just look through them to see like oh will this work will that work um and then knowing sort of okay so the tree map actually works because I’m showing parts of a whole and I’m showing a hundred percent so that might be interesting oh and I actually don’t need to show the you know

12:06.20
Nadieh
1% after the comma, so I don’t need a bar chart maybe. And then then this stream map could work really well.

12:09.05
Jon
Yeah.

12:11.97
Nadieh
um So it’s keeping all of those things in mind. That’s how I kind of approach it.

12:16.08
Jon
Yeah. Now the tools, the data of his tools have gotten, and think a lot of them gotten so much better that it’s in a lot of cases easier to make some of these kind of non-standard on uncommon charts, right? Like raw is a good example. Flourish is a good example.

12:31.03
Jon
um Even some of the new stuff in Tableau where like you have these add-ins or whatever they call them plugins, stuff like that. Would your, for someone who’s never experimented with these sort of uncommon charts, would your recommendation to be, be if they’re working those sorts of tools to just like click and try and see if it makes sense to them?

12:53.33
Nadieh
Yes, I would actually, if you have a little bit of time, I i remember when I first really started out in in data visualization, I didn’t quite have a grasp of this data set could work well as this and that.

13:05.95
Jon
Yeah.

13:06.27
Nadieh
And I took all of these sort of basic examples at the time, it was just, you know, of these D3 gallery examples of like a radial heat map and a hierarchical edge bundling thing that I never actually used in real life, but I wanted to try And I just plugged in my data and I just looked at it like, does it make sense?

13:22.19
Nadieh
No. Does this make sense? No. Does that make sense?

13:24.17
Jon
Mm-hmm.

13:24.39
Nadieh
No. But actually, maybe the next time it will make sense for this new data set that I have. So really, it’s all about trying and building up that experience that you have. But even if you are trying it, always come back down to, is this new chart form displaying the insights that I want to see? As long as you keep that in mind,

13:41.55
Nadieh
i i’m all for experimenting with any and all chart forms that that you have even if doesn’t work now it might work the next time and then you kind of have internalized that

13:49.81
Jon
Yeah. And how do you think about the, I guess, the, the, the challenge of educating the reader on how to read these like uncommon charts? I mean, you, you spent some time talking about it in the book, but like, especially for someone who’s never tried a hierarchical dendrogram network diagram thing, you know, like, like how do you, how do you, what would, what would you say to someone who’s like, Oh, I actually tried this Sankey diagram. I’ve never built one before.

14:19.57
Jon
And it works, but my boss, manager, colleague has never seen one either. So how do I like teach them how to read this chart?

14:31.24
Nadieh
That one is always and like on a case by case basis. Sometimes the charts I find like the the most used on common chartforms I find are kind of intuitive, almost intuitive, like the Sankey diagram is just these big

14:44.14
Jon
Mm-hmm.

14:47.45
Nadieh
lines flowing into different lines. It’s kind of, there’s something very natural about them that makes it quite easy for people to grasp.

14:50.92
Jon
Yeah. Yeah.

14:53.85
Nadieh
So as long as you put labels, like if you are teaching people how to read a chart, I would say text is almost your best friend, like annotations, labels, showing examples, making maybe like you have the main chart, but you have like three or four like

14:54.39
Jon
yeah

15:10.61
Nadieh
ah mini charts below that that highlight a certain thing from that chart so that you show like, oh, look at this specific line through Sankey diagram. It shows yavi yada yada. And then you explain that and then it you have both used that little mini chart to show something interesting about the data, but have also used that as a way to explain people how to interpret this visualization.

15:32.31
Nadieh
So I like that as well. So text is really, in that case, your best friend. And looking at hierarchies like proper, like the title, and making sure that the title says something about what they need to understand, have a subtitle that explains like what is the data that you’re looking at.

15:47.56
Nadieh
um And then like with other uncommon chartforms, this also comes down a little bit to self-reflection. Like if you look at this uncommon chartform, was it with your particular data set kind of easy to understand or was it very hard? If it was very hard, maybe this isn’t the right case for it.

16:08.56
Nadieh
Or And then of course there’s always the, it depends, but if it is, it’s hard to understand, but it conveys the data so much better than any other chart could because other charts, they sort of um aggregate away the details, the complexities, the nuances.

16:13.13
Jon
Yeah.

16:25.50
Nadieh
then maybe you should go for this more uncommon chart, form even if if it takes a little bit of time to get used to, but then maybe do it in a different way. Instead of having this only this one chart, the complex chart, start with some like easier charts, like little charts at the top that just slowly introduces people to this is what the data is that we’re talking about.

16:45.89
Nadieh
This is just some big aggregate numbers, some other things. And then you have the big chart or maybe on a separate tab, you have the big charts like, and now I want to show you the full complexities that you can find within this data set.

16:55.88
Jon
Yeah.

16:57.62
Nadieh
And this is how you can see it. But again, text will there be your ah text religions really are sort of the the best ways for interaction if you have that.

17:01.20
Jon
yeah

17:05.80
Jon
Do you, do you, um, in sort of like, um, uh, Western languages, right. That are horizontal that go left to right. Do you, um, uh, do you kind of assume that people are going to start kind of in the top left and work their way through?

17:24.50
Jon
Because you just said like, you can have these little charts say at the top before you get to the big chart. And that, So I guess my question is, do you assume that people are going to start kind of at the top and work their way in? Or are you using visual cues to say, hey, look at these, you know, whatever, three small charts at the top before you get into the big thing in the middle?

17:47.51
Nadieh
Um, yes, I do assume that, but that also comes from, I was thinking of more like maybe you have like a website, so you, you see the little charts first and then you come up to the big chart.

17:56.58
Jon
Gotcha.

17:57.91
Nadieh
And then if you want to do it the other way around first, big chart, and then the mini charts to show people how to like little nuggets of extra information that you want to point out from the big chart that I would put them at the bottom.

17:58.33
Jon
Yeah.

18:08.71
Nadieh
But if you have more of a, a static thing or a one page thing, I think I would still. put it at the top if we’re talking about gentle introduction to the big one versus put them at the bottom when it’s like highlighting parts of the big one.

18:19.13
Jon
he

18:24.82
Jon
Gotcha.

18:25.87
Nadieh
But i yes, i I do admit that that is a west a very Western point of looking at it. But I think like top to bottom, and would say is pretty common anywhere. Yeah.

18:38.48
Jon
Well, yeah, I mean, i think online for so for sure, right? I mean, I think the natural scrolling is vertical, right?

18:42.20
Nadieh
yeah

18:45.68
Jon
I mean, I would, right, the same with my perspective is still like English. i would But I think that sort of like just the way we use the internet, the way we use cell phones is still vertical primarily vertical.

18:57.04
Nadieh
yeah

18:57.23
Jon
um Yeah, I hadn’t thought about sort of the, right, so the… the the virtual, the digital version, you as the creator can kind of control in a way how someone’s going to read the piece as opposed to the static world where you don’t have as much control.

19:16.21
Nadieh
Right. Yes, that always makes it a little bit more complex.

19:19.94
Jon
So, so let me ask this then I’ve always wondered about this. so you have in the book, you talk obviously a lot about your, your, your interactive pieces, but then you have like a variety of examples showing, you know, your static pieces. And there’s a couple of pictures of like a big poster on a wall with someone standing in front of it. So like, um do you,

19:41.70
Jon
Technology aside, the the the creation, the digital coding, all that aside, do you do you find one harder to produce than the other because of how people interact with it and sort of where they navigate first?

19:56.53
Nadieh
Yes, I do definitely find interactive to be harder. And I know that’s but that’s really from um all of the things that most people don’t see. And that’s browser bugs.

20:07.29
Jon
Mm-hmm.

20:09.39
Nadieh
It it comes down to the coding performance, making sure it works on a big screen and a small like mobile screen that just explodes the amount of time that I have to do it.

20:14.33
Jon
Yeah.

20:19.23
Nadieh
um and Whereas I think thinking about how to lay out the piece of static versus interactive, like the static, you you have a bit of a downside over interactive, I think, because I mean, you can’t work with the scrolling, you can’t work with animations, scrolly tellers, those are just you know gold in terms of slowly introducing a story, making sure that people only see what you want them to see, where static, you just have, boom, that’s it.

20:36.89
Jon
Yeah.

20:45.25
Jon
Mm-hmm. Mm.

20:47.71
Nadieh
But even… the difference in complexity, the just pure and making it interactive on the web, as is nowhere near the complexity that making a static visual as where you try and make that as much as like following a certain hierarchy that your eyes will follow.

21:06.26
Nadieh
Because those things are a little bit more structured, like big texts or some, again, in the Western world, something in the top left draws the eyes a little bit first, except if there’s just this giant vibrant thing in the middle, then maybe they will look there first, but then their eyes will still quickly go to the top left.

21:19.33
Jon
Yeah.

21:22.88
Nadieh
It’s just, you know, see if there’s like a title there.

21:26.53
Jon
Right.

21:26.57
Nadieh
So there are things there that you can you can just apply a little bit more strict to rules. none Not strict rules, but like general, how you say that, guard rules that you can try and use if you want to lay out your static piece.

21:39.77
Nadieh
So, yeah.

21:41.78
Jon
Do you, when you work with clients, is it, um I assume this is generally the case where they’ll come to you and say we want something for our website um or we want a, you know, a static document or report or thing for our wall.

21:57.80
Jon
Does, does that ever like you’re like, well, they wanted this interactive, you know, you’ll be working and creating this interactive thing, but actually think like after some discussion, like a static thing would actually work better.

22:09.89
Jon
Or is it generally like they want something and like, they sort of are, you know, generally like that’s what you’re going to end up building for them.

22:18.77
Nadieh
Um, no, there’s definitely cases, more than enough cases where I would advise a client to go for something different.

22:27.61
Jon
Hmm.

22:28.34
Nadieh
like and Sometimes it’s like you say, well, ah they have a certain goal that they have in mind and then they tell me what they want to do and and then I see the data and then I think, well, actually, maybe you should do this as an interactive instead because it’s quite complex.

22:40.49
Jon
Hmm.

22:40.99
Nadieh
We need to build it out in many steps or instead i they say they want an interactive because that’s the cool kid in town.

22:48.67
Jon
Yeah.

22:48.65
Nadieh
And I say, well, maybe actually this is better static, but Part of that can also sometimes simply be budget. If they they have a certain idea of grandeur and then their budget is not quite quite there and like, well, maybe.

22:56.18
Jon
Uh, yeah.

22:58.66
Jon
Right. Yeah.

23:04.66
Nadieh
Maybe we started out with Timbler.

23:05.65
Jon
Yeah. yeah Right.

23:06.84
Nadieh
And in other cases, i just give them both options.

23:07.11
Jon
Yeah. yeah

23:09.80
Nadieh
I’m like, well, if I were to do it static, I would do it like this. And if I were to do it interactive, I would approach it more like this.

23:12.82
Jon
Yeah.

23:15.29
Nadieh
And then ike I would give my advice.

23:15.81
Jon
Yeah.

23:17.28
Nadieh
I’d say, well, I think this or this one is better. um But then I just still leave the choice up to the to client to make the final decision what they want.

23:23.00
Jon
Right. Do you have clients who you build the interactive piece, but then they want a static version and they sort of say, well, can we just take a screenshot of it and like kind of be done?

23:36.37
Jon
and then you have to say, well, that doesn’t really work. We have to do X, Y, and Z.

23:40.34
Nadieh
Yes, yes.

23:41.06
Jon
Yeah. Okay.

23:42.20
Nadieh
Yes, I also have that, yes.

23:42.30
Jon
Yeah.

23:43.68
Nadieh
And then there are cases where i have sort of shoved in sort of a export to PNG function it into the tool that also, you know, makes it into the right right dimensions because the, you know, the resolution on the web is much lower than when if you were to print it, especially if you print it like in a giant poster.

24:00.58
Jon
Yeah.

24:00.64
Nadieh
um There’s complexities there, but also like you say, yeah, then I need to go, you know, add titles, add legends in different places and there’s, yes.

24:06.96
Jon
Right.

24:09.24
Nadieh
have had clients that uh but but i will say that most of them if i explain it to them understand that this is not just something that i can just plop on and it stays within the same budget it’s like this isn’t this is an extra scope like this is a scope enlargement and it will cost some money and if they’re okay with that then you know and will do it for them but uh yes yeah yeah but i don’t don’t

24:23.72
Jon
Right.

24:28.27
Jon
Right, right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it’s a totally, it’s a totally different thing. Yeah.

24:34.65
Nadieh
but but I don’t blame him because like for for me it’s so obvious that interactive and static are two different beasts, but I um understand that a client who is not into database doesn’t understand the complexities that lie within that and that it isn’t the same.

24:40.51
Jon
Yes.

24:47.87
Jon
yeah Yeah, for sure. um One of the other things that you talk about in the book is, well, you have this phrase amplified encoding, which I love because I think most people sort of use the phrase dual encoding or double encoding. And you make the explicit point in the book that it’s like dual or double encoding just suggests that they’re just too…

25:10.93
Jon
things that you can use. And you’re like, no, there’s like way more than that. um Which I think is is is amazing. And I’m already like putting that into my teaching slides because I just think it’s really good.

25:21.99
Jon
ah But can you talk ah a little bit about like, I guess, like, you know, how you or think about or define um amplified encoding and then maybe ah an example project where you sort of used more and more variables. Yeah.

25:38.01
Nadieh
Yes. So there is, like there’s amplified encoding and then there is sort of adding more variables. But amplified encoding means, what I mean with that is that you take the same value, data value, so it’s like just one one column, and then you apply it to as many different sort of visual channels that you want.

25:57.85
Nadieh
Instead of saying like I can only use this value to set the color of all of my circles. I also set it to the size of the circles and also set it to the opacity of the circles. And, and you know, and this can continue on as as as far as you want.

26:14.80
Nadieh
Which I think because I, and on the one hand, I think one of the the reasons for it is that by sort of stacking these different visual channels on top of each other, you kind of give people more and more ways of um seeing that value visually.

26:33.17
Nadieh
So it’s not just a circle that is big, it’s a circle that is this big, fully opaque and bright red versus a circle that is small and very dim and, you know, grayish.

26:40.34
Jon
Yeah.

26:44.90
Nadieh
that just stands out much more than if it was just a size or just a color or just a transparency.

26:45.47
Jon
yeah

26:51.09
Nadieh
ah So that’s one of the things I really like it. But another reason why I really like it is because it touches upon something that I mentioned several times in the book, and that’s it increases visual diversity. So it makes this thing that you’ve created a little more, it has more for the eyes to look at and be intrigued by, especially if you want to make it a little bit more creative.

27:11.42
Nadieh
It really helps to have more diversity, more not just circles that are only different in size, but imagine them also being ah different shades of green from yellow to green and and like stand more.

27:22.94
Jon
Mm-hmm.

27:24.18
Nadieh
And so that’s the the project that I have used this on, I think the most, or like it’s the entire project is one full amplified encoding going on and that is ah breathing earth.

27:36.24
Nadieh
which is a project I did as a personal project actually, and it basically shows a map of the earth with about 40,000 circles on the places where there’s land. So it’s like a grid of circles and only the places with land have an actual circle.

27:51.51
Nadieh
And they are they are encoded to show the amount of greenness as measured from space. And so like I said, all of these circles and the more greener that that place is, the bigger the circle, the darker green the circle and the more like um opaque the circle is. So you can definitely and then then there’s an animation throughout the year. So it’s like you see the northern hemisphere like like blossoming up in dark greenness, will but getting getting bigger towards the summer and then then going back down again towards the winter. It just gives this much more

28:26.33
Nadieh
like ah vibrant um like it draws you in much more than if it just had been black circles getting bigger and smaller or just just green circles getting you know it’s yeah that’s so that’s why i think that’s such an ah like an there are so many visual channels and i sometimes find with these charts that people are not employing all of these like they don’t have to use all of the channels but they can use a little bit more than what they’ve been using and it would only have i think a positive effect

28:33.81
Jon
Right.

28:36.40
Jon
Yeah.

28:47.80
Jon
Mm-hmm.

28:55.61
Nadieh
in most cases.

28:56.78
Jon
Yeah. And do you find that you, do you find that you yourself need to like temper yourself down a little bit? Like you had like all these encodings like, whoa, like that’s, I’ve got now color and opacity and I’ve got like, I’ve got patterns in it and I’ve got side, like, you, do like, is your process a little bit of like, I’m going throw everything into this and then I’ll pull back a little bit.

29:22.77
Nadieh
it I am more of the latter. However, however, I would say that I am looking at me personally.

29:25.33
Jon
Yeah.

29:28.68
Nadieh
I like to use ah different lesson that is add more variables. And that means that I would say, well, there’s greenness, but there was also

29:34.69
Jon
uh

29:39.20
Nadieh
what other variable, like the amount of like and the amount of wind that happened at that place and like and the in the the temperature at that point in time.

29:40.80
Jon
yeah right yeah yeah yeah

29:45.99
Nadieh
like ah I always like to put in more data. um And that means that I’m also using these visual channels, so I can’t use them to do this amplified encoding anymore.

29:56.45
Nadieh
So it’s always a battle between these two, but i am i am a leaning a little bit more towards more variables, but I i am of the person that just tries to put in as much as possible and and at some point feel like, oh, this is getting a bit too difficult or too overwhelming.

30:10.84
Jon
Yeah. Yeah.

30:11.77
Nadieh
And then and then i then i pull back and say, well, maybe this one isn’t needed or this one, I’ll make this one really subtle, but just a little bit like a little much.

30:14.00
Jon
Pull back. Right.

30:18.94
Jon
Oh, right.

30:20.30
Nadieh
I don’t actually explain it, but I know it’s there.

30:22.68
Jon
Yeah. little little Easter egg just for you.

30:24.82
Nadieh
Yeah, exactly.

30:27.40
Jon
um The other thing I wanted to ask you about was sketching. Because I think a lot of people in the field say, yeah, like you should draw and you should sketch. And it can be paper on pen. It could be…

30:40.82
Jon
an app, whatever it is, but like do some sketching. But um you talk or write about in length in the book. And I think in a very helpful way that like you start by working with the data, understanding sort of the data, the structure of the data, the basic,

31:01.14
Jon
you know, kind of ins and outs and then go to sketching a little bit. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

31:04.56
Nadieh
Mm-hmm.

31:05.99
Jon
Because I think that’s a challenge that a lot of people have of like, well, I can’t just sketch because then I’m just making stuff up and I’ve wasted all this time. And like I go to the data and there’s this weird outlier, but I didn’t know that.

31:17.98
Jon
And so it doesn’t really work. So how do you like, yeah, like what’s your process between the sketching part and then the data kind of analysis part?

31:28.20
Nadieh
Yeah, so well, it it really touches upon what you just said is where if you start making ideas before having looked into the data, I think that on the one hand, you will miss things because you don’t know the data well enough or what’s in it.

31:41.79
Jon
Yeah.

31:41.88
Nadieh
And on the other hand, you could come up with ideas that just to work with your particular data set.

31:42.16
Jon
yeah

31:45.92
Nadieh
Even in the the way that I do it, I miss things and then will come across things that i need to sort of retrace my steps and do it in a different way. But that’s that’s kind of why i always start with this analysis space i just need to get this sort of card house up in my head on what are we talking about how are things distributed what stories can i find within this data or conclusions what do you know what are interesting things to highlight um and and what should i watch out for like you say outliers in this place uh

32:15.97
Jon
Mm-hmm.

32:16.09
Nadieh
So i you know um I do the i do the the basic things, at least like summaries and mean standard deviations, just looking at lots of bar charts, seeing how things are distributed.

32:16.17
Jon
Mm-hmm.

32:26.76
Nadieh
And then I go into the sketching phase because then I have the tools that I need, which is on the one hand, always making sure that I know my goal, like what are we trying to do with this visualization or with this data? And then knowing the data, like what variables do I have? I kind of know how each of these variables is is distributed and what stories there are.

32:45.27
Nadieh
And then I start thinking about, well, how can I actually visualize that? And I feel that with these two tools, it makes me much, much more able to come up with interesting and working visual forms that I can then actually make.

33:01.01
Nadieh
And i mean this is this is about making them more visible. Like this is more for the, you know, the important visuals. You don’t need to do this for every bar chart you create, but for the ones that you have to convince management or it’s like for marketing or a newspaper anything like you just want to have, you know, stretch your muscles a bit.

33:08.17
Jon
Yeah.

33:17.51
Nadieh
um Then I would say sketching is always beneficial.

33:20.87
Jon
Yeah. um you you So I want to go back for a minute because you just said something just piqued my interest. When you are, say, working for a client, and and so I’m going to put this for your in your line of work, it’s you working for a client, but for lots of other people, it’s them working for their manager, or their boss, whatever.

33:36.41
Nadieh
Yeah.

33:39.49
Nadieh
Right.

33:40.10
Jon
And you’re like, oh, I think this uncommon… Let’s just take a Sankey, make it simple. I think this Sankey diagram will be better than these three pie charts that are linked together, right? um

33:49.17
Nadieh
Right.

33:49.94
Jon
Do you… To make that case to the client, do you sort of make both of them and say, hey, look at how this Sankey diagram does a better job?

34:01.08
Jon
Even though it’s a less common form, it does a better job of showing the data. Because I’m thinking about the data analyst who… has the same constraint where they’re like, oh, my boss always wants a pie chart with a hundred slices and I can make this other chart, right?

34:15.59
Jon
That is better. But how do I make the case that this chart form that is less common, maybe less familiar, but is at the end of the day going to be more effective?

34:27.75
Nadieh
Yes, I think there, the just show them is the thing that works for me the best. And so usually I can get away with sketching. um So I will sketch the idea for them because sometimes making it is just, you know, it takes a really long time.

34:38.39
Jon
Okay.

34:42.87
Nadieh
So you you just don’t have that.

34:43.12
Jon
Right.

34:45.08
Nadieh
You can’t do that. so

34:45.98
Jon
Yeah.

34:46.40
Nadieh
I sketch the idea that I have in mind, like let’s do it as a Sankey. So I kind of look into the data, I see, oh, well, this is really huge numbers. so I should make one like one line really big. And then the rest is kind of like average.

34:58.04
Nadieh
I know we’re talking about like 10 different streams and blah, blah, blah. So i kind of try and make it as as, you know, how do you say that?

35:01.97
Jon
Mm-hmm.

35:07.96
Nadieh
specific to the data as possible without actually having to make it.

35:10.06
Jon
Yeah.

35:11.19
Nadieh
um And then I show them. And what I also like to do then is show between one and three other good case studies of Sankey diagrams where I feel like it doesn’t really, it doesn’t really take a lot to understand what’s what you actually seeing here.

35:20.44
Jon
Ah.

35:25.19
Nadieh
But this this is how like an actual finished piece could look and look at how how well it’s actually doing for this dataset. And I think it would work well for my dataset.

35:33.69
Jon
Ah.

35:33.85
Nadieh
That usually works for me. Like nine out of 10 cases, that works for me. um Although I usually give them like three options because they, you know, you that that’s what I prefer even more.

35:41.72
Jon
Sure.

35:44.36
Nadieh
So the Sankey might be one and then like, you know, the pie chart might be another if I think it would work at all.

35:46.58
Jon
Right. Yeah.

35:49.43
Nadieh
But, and it’s not necessarily about comparing the Sankey to the pie charts, but it’s like just showing how well the Sankey itself would work.

35:58.50
Jon
Mm-hmm.

35:59.59
Nadieh
Um, but both are fine, but it’s always the balance between how much time can you invest into convincing your manager. um and I think the, I did have a case where I couldn’t convince my client, like on a certain idea.

36:15.41
Jon
Yeah.

36:17.00
Nadieh
And then I felt like, no, this, I’m pretty sure this is really, this is better. And then i ended up making it.

36:24.06
Jon
Yeah. Yeah.

36:24.66
Nadieh
it was it it was a It was definitely sort of a risk because you know if they could still say, like no, this is not what we want.

36:28.49
Jon
yeah

36:31.00
Nadieh
But in the end, they like, oh i forget I forgot that the the English words, but they’re like, okay, okay, you’re right, it was better.

36:31.55
Jon
yeah

36:41.95
Nadieh
They wanted to use it.

36:42.88
Jon
Yeah.

36:43.79
Nadieh
but

36:45.44
Jon
I mean, sometimes you just say, you know, sometimes the expert kind of knows what they’re talking about. Right. Like, yeah.

36:50.00
Nadieh
Right, right. there are also cases where it doesn’t work out. I mean, this sometimes as the expert, you can be blinded by the curse of expertise where something that’s super obvious to you, just can’t explain it to the client.

36:54.21
Jon
Yeah.

37:03.47
Nadieh
And yeah, just like, okay, well, that’s and too bad, I guess. So this time we go the the more standard route.

37:06.96
Jon
Yeah. Yeah. um So on this on this on this sort of track, um you talk in the book a lot about like what is effective, what is successful.

37:22.46
Jon
And I’m curious from… There’s a lot of ways that we could talk about success. So I actually want to just make this about about you. When you are working on a project… um From your position of the creator, how do you view success?

37:37.32
Jon
I mean, obviously the client is happy and they write you a check that is successful.

37:39.69
Nadieh
Hmm.

37:41.53
Jon
But I mean, just from like a personal perspective, are you like, I made the Sankey versus the pie chart and they really liked the Sankey and so therefore it’s a success? Or are there just certain projects where you’re just like, you know, just the output, like what is for you like intrinsically, like what what means success for you?

38:02.10
Nadieh
um I think it can be multiple different things. On the one hand, you’re right. The client is happy, but some clients can just really show how happy they are in their communications and The ones that are just, you know, where you feel like you can you can see their like glowing, smiling faces through the email, um that really makes it like a definite success for me.

38:23.91
Jon
Yeah.

38:27.38
Nadieh
Usually then also kind of, you know, go the extra mile for them because they just, it’s it’s like, oh, I really like you.

38:27.86
Jon
Yeah.

38:36.30
Jon
That’s always a good feeling.

38:36.51
Nadieh
ah So yeah, yeah, yeah.

38:37.17
Jon
I mean, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah.

38:39.70
Nadieh
um So thats that’s a success, but there can be other things where it’s about how people interact with it.

38:50.48
Nadieh
That’s also a success where it’s like you share it online and, you know, getting more clicks, the the likes is like every person, it’s a nice feeling, but I like it even more when, you know,

38:50.86
Jon
Mm.

39:03.98
Nadieh
When it’s like, for example, I made this visualization once about all the fights in Dragon Ball Z. And then I got notified that it was shared in, I think, the Dragon Ball Reddit page.

39:16.05
Nadieh
Yes.

39:16.28
Jon
Yeah.

39:16.29
Nadieh
And people were just talking about what they found and what they saw. And so that was made it successful to me is like how, as a fellow fan, that other people are really digging into this and finding insights and things and stories that they they had never really realized about these characters in this anime.

39:24.06
Jon
yeah

39:32.06
Nadieh
um That’s another part of success where I feel that that even if it’s only like a very small niche of people, but that those people really, really enjoy just learning about what i what I’m trying to show them with this with this visualization.

39:48.29
Jon
Right.

39:48.46
Nadieh
um And the final one is that that’s one that one still happens to me with a project I did about constellations and constellations for different cultures across the earth like how you know Western culture but what about Mayan culture Korean constellations.

39:59.89
Jon
hmm.

40:03.81
Nadieh
um And I still get emails like several times a year about um about school teachers, about museums, about like astronomy departments that ask if they can use the visuals from this piece to you know teach people that there is more than just Western constellations.

40:18.44
Jon
Yeah.

40:23.47
Nadieh
That’s another I guess it’s it’s related to the one with the Dragon Ball Z. It’s like people actually using, like you you get this sort of really tangible result of people using the visuals that you made to to enrich in their lives in some way.

40:30.07
Jon
yeah

40:38.00
Jon
Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. um Well, on that note, um ah let’s see. Thanks for coming on the show.

40:44.60
Nadieh
All right, happy beer.

40:44.79
Jon
um People can get the book at um wherever they get their books, I assume. Right.

40:50.49
Nadieh
Yes, yes.

40:51.34
Jon
OK. um And if they want to reach out to you to ah have you teach for them or hire you, what’s the best way to get in touch with you?

41:03.05
Nadieh
They can either go to my website, visualcinnamon.com or email me at info at visualcinnamon.com.

41:10.53
Jon
Love it. And I will link to that in the show notes. If you are listening, want to get in touch with Naughty, you should do that because as you heard, she’s great. um but Naughty, thanks for coming on the show.

41:22.47
Jon
This was a lot of fun. I really appreciate it.

41:24.17
Nadieh
It was, it always is.

41:24.71
Jon
and ah yeah

41:25.92
Nadieh
Thank you for having me.

41:26.92
Jon
We got to do it more often ah than every like five years.

41:28.54
Nadieh
Yes.

41:30.04
Jon
Okay. All right.

41:30.64
Nadieh
Yes.

41:30.76
Jon
Thanks so much. Appreciate it.