THE 'BEST OF...' DATA VISUALISATION SERIES​

When I launched my website in 2010, primarily as a blog, I began curating and publishing monthly collections of links to some of the best, most interesting, or thought-provoking data visualisation-related content I come across.

The world of data vis content was much smaller, and easier to find back in 2010. These monthly posts were always published in simplistic list form. I briefly considered committing more time to making them more visual, maybe with image extracts of the works selected for inclusion, but pragmatism was necessary to keep the task viable, and so the trade-off decision to just publish lists was persevered with.

As the field grew in the early 2010s, so too did the explosion of new visualisation work and written content. This led to an extra level of content grouping for the posts:

  • Visualisations & Infographics: Covered the latest best visualisation, infographic or other related design works.
  • Articles: These were references to written articles, discourse or interviews about visualisation.
  • Learning & Development: These links covered any presentations, tutorials, podcasts, academic papers, case-studies, how-tos etc.
  • Subject News: Included announcements within the field, such as new sites or resources, new book titles and other notable developments.
  • Sundries: These were links to other interesting contents, sometimes informal, but not necessarily related to data visualisation, maybe with have a data, technology or visual theme.

These posts were always very popular, not just in generating traffic to the site but also in the perceived cachet of being included. The selections were always made purely on the basis of what I found to be the best, most interesting, or thought-provoking data visualisation-related content I encountered. I was always more thankful of people producing the great work I linked to, more than they could be to me for including them!

After publishing the round-up of best stuff from December 2021 after 153 editions and 12 years after posting my first, I decided to bring an end to my efforts publishing these collections. This was due to increasingly limited spare capacity to undertake this time-intensive monthly commitment and because the platforms, channels and networks I relied upon to source new content were becoming every more fragmented.

This is the full collection in chronological order. Please note that some of the URLs within these posts will be broken or obsolete, the inevitable consequence of digital decay.