RJ's Inspiration #005 💰

RJ's Inspiration

weekly viz to inspire you too

👁 LINEAR CHRONOLOGY
was published in 1821's Chronology of Events. The chart shows multiple time series of revenues, expenditures, exports, debt, and the price of stocks, wheat, and bread between the years 1770–1820. It is the last known chart created by William Playfair, but its provenance is only the beginning of why I find it so inspiring. HD image.

At a quick glance my attention is not caught by the aged paper or elegant text. Instead, see the thoroughly modern aesthetic of Playfair's coloring and precision. The same color palette could be mistaken for one of Google's products. Double encoding (color and line style) for the time series, war-years annotations, and a breezy timeline that marks only the last numeral of each year complement the feel.

A brilliant yellow legend orients you to the chart's most unique multiple vertical axes: each line uses the same numerals (0–120) but different scales for each series: tens of millions, millions, pounds, and farthings. While this may not be hailed as a best practice today (as it creates meaningless intersections), I marvel at its unique sharing of the numeric scale. Read Ian Spence and Howard Wainer's chapter "William Playfair and the invention of statistical graphs" to learn more about this unique chart. Google Books.

👉 WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
Please contact me to share your favorite viz or offer any advice for how this newsletter experiment can be improved.