Reading the world through data

I've always loved watching the world through the lens of data.

It gives a much broader, more accurate perspective than reading the news with all its sensationalism.

Watching great graphs also has other benefits for data related professionals:

• it develops your design eye (that's actually the only way to make your graphs look good too)
• it develops your graphicacy: your knowledge of available graph types and techniques

You probably understood it: I'm a real dataviz geek and spend a lot of my time exploring what's published in newspapers, scientific publications and social media.

Dataviz inspiration

A year ago I decided to concatenate all my favorite pieces in a website called Dataviz Inspiration. It's a bit like a Pinterest of dataviz.

A big pro: it's filterable so if you're interested in building a specific chart type like a treemap for instance, you will quickly find some related inspiration.

I love it and use it for my personal needs constantly! With AI making the tech part of dataviz less of a problem, design is now the tricky part.

Check Dataviz Inspiration.com

10 charts I loved this summer

This summer I realised I would love to have some of those curated charts delivered to my inbox every now and then.

And so I thought you might love it too! 😀

So below I would like to share 10 graphs that made me think or feel during my summer break. Both in terms of story shared or dataviz technique used.

Let's go!

1️⃣ Demographic Profiles · Benjamin Niedermann

I love it when I stumble on a truly innovative way to display information.

Here we have 3 mirror distributions. And instead of a dropdown to pick the country, you just drag the world map.

Every day I'm more amazed by the creativity AI brings to the table. There is really a revolution happening in the dataviz field.

Note: if you're interested in building interactive, bespoke graphs like this, check my d3 loves react project!

2️⃣ Did AI write this article? · The Economist

As I've said many times in this newsletter, I'm worried about AI's impact on our world, even though it's such a powerful tool for dataviz.

This clean stacked area chart made me think, because there's a parallel with our field.

Many more bespoke, interactive charts are published today than ever before, but do they add insight? Do they add knowledge?

3️⃣ Burned area in France · Le Monde

Fires have been a very big deal in France this summer. One more facet of global warming's impact, and I couldn't ignore it here. Seven times the historical average.

As usual, the French newspaper Le Monde covered the event well, with clean graphs. I like that the colors aren't oversaturated, a common pitfall, which gives the whole thing a calm, restful feel alongside the rest of the slick design.

4️⃣ 2026 World Cup data portraits · Alexander Bogachev

Every World Cup match rebuilt as a 3D "data portrait" sculpted from around 1,500 events.

You've probably already seen this one, it's a genuine social-media banger. I'm not into football at all, but it's very cool to see a viz go everywhere like this.

5️⃣ The journey of a drop of water · Perrin Remonté

A gorgeous map of France's river basins coloured by which sea each one ultimately reaches.

A lovely reminder that the river outside your window may not flow to the nearest coast — and the calm, appeasing palette makes it a joy to linger on.

6️⃣ Hotel prices surge for the eclipse · El País

A dumbbell chart showing how hotel prices in Spanish cities jumped for the August 2026 total eclipse.

I liked the deliberate choice of the right chart type — a dumbbell is perfect for comparing two values across many groups at a glance.

There has been hundreds of images about the eclipse location. But it's interesting to see another angle of the story.

7️⃣ Share of households with air conditioning · Our World in Data

A clean horizontal bar chart comparing AC adoption across the world's main regions, revealing huge gaps.

With the AC debate raging through Europe's heatwaves, this simple but effective barplot is a good reminder of just how wide those disparities are.

8️⃣ A day of trains across Europe · chillchamp1

An animated dark-mode replay of one real day of European rail traffic, every train a glowing dot trailing across the map.

A flight-radar-style take on trains. Mesmerising to watch the whole network pulse to life.

Trains matter to me, since I'm trying to stop flying, so I stared at this for a veeeeery long time. The contrast with other parts of the globe is striking too.

Last but not least, it fits a point I made recently: in 2026, if your graph shows flows, they should actually flow!

9️⃣ Does AI stop children from learning? · The Economist

Three density panels showing that pupils who used AI did their homework better and faster, yet scored worse on exams.

A topic I care a lot about, told convincingly by showing the whole distribution rather than just averages.

I always tell my D3 students to use AI as little as possible while they're learning, and this only reinforces that.

🔟 Water level of the Rhine in Cologne · Ansgar Wolsing

The Rhine's 2026 level plunging to a record low, drawn against the grey band of every year since 2000.

My favourite touch is tiny but brilliant: the thin white stroke around the purple line that makes it pop off the historical range.

WDYT?

Can I ask you: would you like to receive a list like this every week? Drop me an email and let me know!

And that's it for today!

Thanks to the hundreds of you who said hi in your own language last week. I read every single one! 🙏🙏🙏

Best,
Yan