nigel holmes

great book about an oddly great guy!

Cover to muybridge

Interior of muybridge

Interior of muybridge

Interior of muybridge

This was an absolutely great book! An amazing story, Guy Delisle dug deeply into the challenges, triumphs & horrific moments of Muybridge’s life, I learned a ton, was captivated for all of it. My dad got it first recommended - I hadn’t heard of it. Def recommend! From @dandq.bsky.social great stuff!

Combine Einstein (simple but not too simple) and @nigelblue.bsky.social (it's not about simplifying, it's about clarifying). Instead of simplifying q.b. and clarifying, you have a tool that forces you to go simpler and without options to clarify. It's unfixable, hence the cardification.

congratulations! well deserved.

Photo quilt of Muybridge images. It shows people walking, running or jumping and several sets of horses racing

The famous 1878 Horse in Motion, a set of 12 images of a race horse, Sally Gardner, at the race track in Palo Alto CA. The goal was to answer the burning question of _unsupported transit_: Is there any stage in a gallop when the horse has all 4 feet off the ground. See if you can find the frame that proves this.

A selfie photo of Eadweard Muybridge

#TodayinHistory #dataviz #OTD 📊
💀May 8, 1904 Eadweard Muybridge died in Kingston upon Thames, England 🇬🇧

~ 1875 he developed a system for motion photography from a series of frames & pioneered the study of motion in humans and animals --a precursor of moving pictures & animated graphics.

The American Eagle, in the style of a crashed airplane

A dollar bill, with an N written in Sharpie in front of the ONE

George Washington escaping from the dollar bill using knotted sheets

Final cover, in the style of The Scream

Some of the nice ideas that didn't make the cover of The Economist this week, and the one that did
economist.com/newsletters/cover-story

Setting spotlights on @kennethfield.bsky.social and @nigelblue.bsky.social

Animated version of Muybridge's The Horse in Motion

And here it is in motion. Can you spot where it is that the horse has all 4 feet off the ground? Leland Stanford made a bunch of money on this bet; Muybridge provided the proof.

Photo quilt of Muybridge images. It shows people walking, running or jumping and several sets of horses racing

The famous 1878 Horse in Motion, a set of 12 images of a race horse, Sally Gardner, at the race track in Palo Alto CA. The goal was to answer the burning question of _unsupported transit_: Is there any stage in a gallop when the horse has all 4 feet off the ground. See if you can find the frame that proves this.

Muybridge;s Zoopraxiscope, a circular device for arranging a set of still pictures to create the impression of motion.

Photo of Eadweard Muybridge, with a long white beard

#TodayinHistory #dataviz #Onthisday #OTD 📊
🎂Apr 9, 1830 Eadweard Muybridge born in Kingston upon Thames, England 🇬🇧

Muybridge pioneered the use of photography in the study of motion, a precursor of moving pictures & animated graphics.

The Daily Heller: Information Trumps Disinformation Every Time – PRINT Magazine 'Info We Trust, Remastered' tells tales of the evolution of charts throughout history.

"charts have meaning that works for everyone"—Thank you Steven Heller! www.printmag.com/daily-heller...

Making information graphics is a craft—a handmade, rational, and optimistic pursuit that expands our knowledge and empowers our actions. The west side of the exhibition traces an intimate path through Info We Trust (Visionary Press, 2025) with text, original artwork, and enlarged illustrations by author RJ Andrews. Together, they underscore how data storytelling is both an art and a science, bridging imagination and evidence. In parallel on the east side, the exhibition broadens its lens to celebrate the field of information design as a whole. Works by leading contemporary designers showcase today’s expanding visual vocabulary alongside historic examples chosen for aesthetic and thematic resonance. Each piece reflects a belief that information, when generously made for the audience, can illuminate and inspire. See how designers past and present wrangle the chaos of data into intriguing forms bursting with clarity. From rare charts to digital darlings, each artifact speaks to a shared pursuit: to reveal comparisons, provoke discovery, and carry us all to new shores of reality.

today I'm making the welcome placard for next week's exhibition at Cooper Union, featuring an insane collection of AMAZING information designers: @nadiehbremer.com @jenchristiansen.com @datavandals.bsky.social @kennethfield.bsky.social @nigelblue.bsky.social @shirleywu.studio & many more

Read The Signs The Evolution of Writing, In Science and Art

Background: in my last post, I speedwalked through millennia of science and history in the intersection of writing and art

An incredible explainer on the "tariff formula" from @felixsalmon.com @axios.com

#psy6135 An effective way to show change. Why does this work?

Previewing "The Craft of Data Graphics" Pairing data-graphic masterpieces with rare works.

new on Chartography www.chartography.net/p/previewing...

here’s the cover of my new book…out later in the year!

DIAMONDS WERE A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND—a classic 1982 TIME chart by @nigelblue.bsky.social—has arrived!

Like everyone - the @datavandals.bsky.social abandoned Twitter and have a profile here! Give us a follow - we have tons of awesome news to share soon!

graphic magic just arrived via @nigelblue.bsky.social 💙

Van taarten en balken [Of pies and bars]. 1996 🇳🇱

Have you read Nigel Holmes - Joyful infographics?
Imo a mustread when doing dataviz 🙌
@nigelblue.bsky.social

2024 in visual storytelling A collection of some favorites from The Washington Post’s Design, Graphics and Opinions teams.

What a year!
www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/in...

Photo of Otto Neurath

A Neurath ISOTYPE chart titled The Young Population Aged 13-20 with the question: How many of each age group stay in school? Stay in school is shown by blue people sitting at a desk going to the left of center; people working is shown by red walking figures going to the right.

Neurath ISOTYPE Figure titled: Great War 1914-18, showing numbers of Allied vs Central Power troops by ISOTYPE symbols: killed (black graves), wounded (red, on crutches) or returning home (men walking)

#TodayinHistory #dataviz #Onthisday #OTD 📊
💀Dec 22, 1945 Otto Neurath died in Oxford, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

1924: Museum of Social Statistical Graphics and the ISOTYPE system, a method of showing social, technological, biological, and historical connections in pictorial form

#TodayinHistory #dataviz #OTD 📊
🎂Dec 22, 1880 Willard Cope Brinton born in West Chester, PA, USA 🇺🇸

1914: Pictograms to represent a series of numbers by icons (combining concepts of the bar graph and pictogram of varying size) ; heat maps and more-- 'Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts'

Cover of Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, showing a diagram of a Flandlander's house in the shape of a pentagon

Image of a 3D sphere rising through the 2D plane of Flatland, showing that it would appear as a circle changing in size over time

Painters portrait of Edmund Abbott

#TodayinHistory #dataviz #Onthisday #OTD 📊
🎂Dec 20, 1838 Edwin A. Abbott born in Marylebone, Middlesex, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

1884: In _Flatland_, he gave literary description of life in a 2D world for people living in a 3D world, thus prompting 3D people to think about the possibility of higher dimensions

Designing Information book cover

Revisiting 'Designing Information' by Joel Katz, an idiosyncratic little gem of a book #dataViz

My advice is to start with the "OK To Skip" books. The rest are ok to skip. #dataviz

thanks to all new followers; will be posting more often now my new book is almost done!📊

Always a pleasure to read Neils insights, and this is a splendid review of Joyful Infographics by Nigel Holmes.
Read both! 👩‍🏫

#dataviz #infograhics #illustration
@theneilrichards.bsky.social
@nigelblue.bsky.social

How do we bring joy to data visualisations? “The designer who wants to be more than a mere decorator must apply his thinking to the proper ‘tone of voice’ for presenting statistics. […] A bar chart is nothing but the skeleton of a story until t...

NEW: Questions in Dataviz: How do we bring joy to data visualisations? 📊
questionsindataviz.com/2024/09/10/h...
Alternatively titled "What is visual prosody?" - a review of Joyful Infographics by @nigelblue.bsky.social