First draft for my Weekly Chart this week
Goood day, everyone, and 👋 from Berlin again! Yep, I’m back in hot, hot Germany.
And today was a first, good day of a week that will be fairly busy – I’ll help Rose with the Data Vis Dispatch tomorrow and are also responsible for the Weekly Chart on Thursday. Besides that, we’re still in the hiring process of two roles, and I also have a feedback session with Rose on Wednesday.
But, back to the Weekly Chart.
The big question for everyone who decides to come up with a Weekly Chart: “Which topic to choose?” There are lots (lots!) of options out there. Should I write about that chart I created on a whim a few weeks ago? Or about the game I currently like to play? About the heat in Germany? Crunch some data about the hiring process?
I decided against all that (so far! Will I change my mind? Stay tuned!). “I could combine the research I’m doing for my book with the Weekly Chart!,” it dawned me an hour ago, and so this is the plan: I’ll talk about backgrounds of data visualizations. Yep, backgrounds. I want to find out:
- how light (or dark) do “professional” data vis go (the ones created by newsrooms, featured and awarded data visualizations) vs data vis created by “the community”? (First impression: “professional” data vis goes very dark/bright, while “community” data vis goes more to the middle of the value spectrum.) (This difference between “professionals” and “community” is a very, very blurry one that I feel uncomfortable to draw – I might change this question and my sources.)
- what are the most common hues/colors for data vis backgrounds? (First impression: warm colors, especially beige/light yellow, light grey, and dark blue)
And I’ll create some neat, colorful scatterplots for it 🎉!
(Again, that’s the plan at least.)
The potential problem: I’m so deep into colors, so it’s a bottomless pit for me to write about that. I’ll need to stay focused on these two questions, otherwise I’ll loose myself in that topic. You’ll find out on Thursday if I’m successful. Fingers crossed 🤞.