Data Visualization and the Modern Imagination (opens in new tab)

I would like to add one of my finds (if it's already mentioned in the original post, sorry for the double) - the National Atlas of Japan (1977) [1].

Take a look at the railway traffic statistics [2]. The visualization there must have been painstaking to make.

[1] https://www.gsi.go.jp/atlas/atlas-e-etsuran.html

[2] https://www.gsi.go.jp/atlas/archive/j-atlas-d_e_49.pdf

edit:

The earthquake epicenter visualization is also worth mentioning:

[3] https://www.gsi.go.jp/atlas/archive/j-atlas-d_e_11.pdf

I have long been fascinated by timeline designs. So this is right up my street. So impressive what these artists of old managed to create without access to computers and design software.

For more modern timeline visualisations, you might be interested in this list of timeline designs I compiled:

https://www.tiki-toki.com/blog/entry/ten-amazing-online-time...

What I have learned about data viz over the years is that it is a very powerful solution to problems, just as Nightingale's diagrams demonstrated the effect of hygiene, which changed how societies and governments respond to epidemics. What I have also learned is that a solution obviates a dynamic someone thinks it is their job to manage, and a visualization that solves a problem is its own problem.

The "best," diagrams show change over time, and provide the presenter with a way to demonstrate how they are the important pivot point that optimizes and drives that change. The "worst," diagrams are the ones that illuminate the problem in such a way that it is no longer difficult, which humiliates the people it was presented to and designed to help.

I recommend using data viz privately, to reason through and solve problems quickly, and then use the time you save for self investment. The real value I think is to use data viz not as a product for productivity, but as an arbitrage tool for leverage.

I had no idea W. E. B. Du Bois was a data and info graphic guru. Wow.

There don't seem to be many (any?) network diagrams (or what mathematicians strictly refer to by "graphs"). Are they a very recent invention?

The Data Visualization Society is a great community for discussing historical visualization.

I've flicked through this and it's honestly wonderful and beautifully presented, but why go to all that effort and then just render the headings in images without even providing any alt text?

I hope this is an ongoing project and that will be addressed.