Research Guides: Data Visualization: Inspiration

Websites

Check out these sites if you're looking for more data visualization inspiration. Seeing how others present data in a visual way, and how effective the result is, can be a great way to expand your own visualization knowledge.

The Data Visualisation Catalogue
The Data Visualisation Catalogue is a project developed by Severino Ribecca to create a (non-code-based) library of different information visualisation types. The website serves as a learning and inspiration resource for those working with data visualisation.
Flowing Data
Examples of effective visualizations, including infographics, maps, and networks for a variety of data. Also, just plain interesting to look through!
Information is Beautiful
Lives up to its name, with beautiful graphics, many of which are interactive. Check out the winning graphics from the annual contest.
Bl.ocks
A viewer for visualization code hosted on GitHub. The site lets users easily see the code used to produce the graphics.
The Pudding
Focused on "visual essays" which often means immersive and interactive graphics. Start with the "greatest hits" section to get a sense of content type.
Storytelling with data
Frames effective data visualization as storytelling. Most visualizations are created in Excel and associated Excel workbooks are available for download.
Awesome visualization research (GitHub)
A (long) list of data visualization sites, books, examples, and more.
Makeover Monday
Explore different perspectives and approaches to create more effective visualizations
#MakeoverMonday offers inspiration and a dose of perspective for those who communicate data.
Data Visualization Society
Where Data Visualization Practitioners and Enthusiasts Connect. DVS is a volunteer-run 501c3 nonprofit with three key objectives: celebrate, nurture, and advance the field of data visualization.

W. E. B. du Bois's Data Portraits by The W.E.B. Du Bois Center at the University of Massachusetts; Whitney Battle-Baptiste (Editor); Britt Rusert (Editor)
ISBN: 1616897066
Publication Date: 2018-10-23

Fun examples

It may not always seem like it, but working with data can be lots of fun! Here are some examples of people who realized (a) essentially everything is some form of data, and (b) the sky's the limit when it comes to data visualizations.

Tracking slang
Tracing the rise and fall of slang terms over time. Just one of the many things you can explore with Google trends data.
Interactive visualization of Hamilton lyrics
A deep dive into Hamilton, including character relationships and thematic content of songs.
She giggles, he gallops
Text-mining examination of gender tropes in film scripts. Bonus: code used is available on GitHub.
Street orientations
Interactive visualization of variable road directions. Much cooler than it sounds.
Network of the Marvel Cinematic Universe characters
A fun way to start thinking about 3D network graphs.
Rap (vocabulary) battle
Look at the number of unique words used by hip hop artists.
Generating fantasy maps
A step-by-step guide to how the maps were created. Also includes link to original Python code used to create the maps.
Dear Data: A week of lockdown connections. 2020.
Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec’s Life Data Visualizations. Two information designers offer prompts for collecting and drawing information and hope from our lives.