Author Archives: richardbrath

About richardbrath

Richard is a long time visualization designer and researcher. Professionally, I am one of the partners of Uncharted Software Inc. I have recently completed a PhD in data visualization at LSBU. The opinions on this blog are related to my personal interests in data visualization, particularly around research interests related to my PhD work- this blog is about exploratory aspects of data visualization not proven principles.

Dashed and patterned lines for visualization (aka 1D texture)

Posted on May 27, 2021 by richardbrath

Bertin and Texture Jacques Bertin discusses texture in visualization, in his landmark book Semiology of Graphics (1967 original French edition, 1983 English translation). Much of modern visualization theory and implementation hinges on Bertin’s framework, including the notion of visual attributes, … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, texture | Leave a comment

Visualizing with Text: Endorsements and more examples

Posted on April 20, 2021 by richardbrath

Thanks everyone who’s bought a copy of Visualizing with Text. I hope you’re enjoying it. I’m really appreciate some of the examples I’m seeing in the wild. Here’s some fantastic examples from Georgios Karamanis. I like the shifted + bold … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, Microtext, Text Visualization, Thematic Map | Leave a comment

Visualizing with SVG before D3: Timeseries

Posted on January 31, 2021 by richardbrath

News headlines about the GameStop price swings this week reminded me of some old SVG visualizations of stock bubbles and crashes that I’ve done. SVG was around before D3. I generated SVG visualizations in the mid-2000’s well before D3.js. It … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, Line Chart, Timeseries | Leave a comment

Visualizing Causes of Death in Georgian London

Posted on December 30, 2020 by richardbrath

LondonLives.org is a collection of 240,000 historic manuscripts from eighteenth century London. These have been collected, organized and analyzed, such as Sharon Howard’s summary of 2894 coroner inquests from London 1760-1799 with each case including subjects, verdicts and causes of … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphanumeric Chart, Data Visualization, Text Skimming, Text Visualization | Leave a comment

In Defence of Data-Dense Visualizations

Posted on November 29, 2020 by richardbrath

I’ve done a couple of presentations with content from my book Visualizing with Text to grad classes in the last month. In both cases, a couple of people expressed concern regarding the complexity of some visualizations, being particularly data dense. … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, Text Visualization | 1 Comment

Visualizing with Text: author’s copy and new content

Posted on October 27, 2020 by richardbrath

I just received my author’s copy of Visualizing with Text this morning! It’s awesome to finally hold the book after 2 years of writing (and the start of this blog 7 years ago!): Flipping through triggers some memories, like finding … Continue reading →

Posted in Graph Visualization, Text Visualization | 1 Comment

Visualizing with Text – high-res figures now on-line

Posted on October 26, 2020 by richardbrath

Visualizing with Text releases any day now: I hope to have my copy before the end of VisWeek. I’ve finally posted all the figures that I authored on-line with a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. There’s 158 high-resolution images and diagrams from … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, Design Space, Text Visualization | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The transformation of Isotype

Posted on October 3, 2020 by richardbrath

Over on EagerEyes, Robert Kosara recently asked, what happened to ISOTYPE? It’s a good question, with a multi-faceted answer. Here’s a few facets, mostly focused on inherent limitations of the Isotype design approach: 1. What’s an Isotype line chart? Isotype … Continue reading →

Posted in bar chart, Data Visualization, Isotype, Line Chart, Pie Chart | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Visualizing with Text – Interactive Demos

Posted on September 23, 2020 by richardbrath

Visualizing with Text now has interactive demos made with observable notebooks. One demo for word skimming is discussed including some code edits to make colorful text. Continue reading →

Posted in compromisejs, Data Visualization, Observable Notebook, Text Skimming, Text Visualization, Variable Fonts | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

“…and what is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?”

Posted on August 16, 2020 by richardbrath

My book Visualizing with Text is nearing publication (early November!). One goal of the book is to appeal to both researchers (with structured text with logical arguments), and designers (with many examples and pictures). I really like books with lots … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, Text Visualization | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment