Helping you become a more effective information designer. You want to create effective data visualizations. That’s hard work. There are so many decisions to make, like chart type, annotations, and color! Will this podcast help? Host and fellow data viz designer Alli Torban is in the trenches with you. She shares the latest tools and methods that she’s discovered while on the job and interviewing top designers. If you’re an analyst, journalist, or designer who wants to hone your skills with specific tactics, then this show could be just what you need.
82: How to use your inspiration with Gabrielle Mérite (Creativity Mini-Series)
We know that we’re supposed to gather inspiration, but then what? Gabrielle Mérite, a senior data visualization designer at Pentagram, shares what to do with your inspiration to put it to work for you! Join my newsletter! https://dataviztoday.com/newslettersignup Show notes: https://dataviztoday.com/shownotes/82
BONUS: How to build habits and rituals that support your creative practice
Why are habits/rituals important to your creative practice and what are some examples? Duncan Geere, Will Chase, and I share what's been most impactful to our dataviz practice! Shownotes / watch video: https://blog.elevatedataviz.com/the-elevate-dataviz-show-6 RJ Andrew's creative rituals infographic: https://infowetrust.com/project/routines
81: Creativity Mini-Series with Neil Richards
How do you approach creativity for personal projects vs business intelligence? That's our big creativity question today for Neil Richards. Neil Richards is the author of the new book Questions in Dataviz, Lead Business Intelligence Analyst at JLL, and four-time Tableau Visionary. Show notes: https://dataviztoday.com/shownotes/81
80: Creativity Mini-Series with Manuel Canales
We’re exploring creativity in information design from the perspective of amazingly creative people in the field! Let’s hear how Manuel Canales, the graphics assignment editor at the Washington Post and previously the senior graphics editor at National Geographic, gets the most out of his creativity. How he approaches the pressure of a new project has changed the way I work! Let’s go… Show notes
79: Creativity Mini-Series with Marcelo Duhalde
We’re exploring creativity in information design from the perspective of amazingly creative people in the field! Let’s hear how Marcelo Duhalde, the Associate Creative Director at the South China Morning Post, approaches creativity. We dive into how he defines creativity, what his process is like, what kills his creativity, and more! Show notes
78: Creativity Mini-Series with Duncan Geere
We’re exploring creativity in information design from the perspective of amazingly creative people in the field! Let’s hear how Duncan Geere approaches creativity. We dive into how he defines creativity, how he gets the most out of his creativity, and more! Duncan Geere is an information designer living in Sweden who works with graphics, words, and sound. He's one-half of the loud numbers, data sonification podcast and studio. And one-quarter of the Elevate data viz learning community. Duncan is always surprising me with his creative data sonification experiments, and he's also a really deep thinker. So I knew he'd have some interesting answers to my questions about creativity and he did not disappoint! Show notes Volunteer to be a Beta reader for my new book!
77: Creativity Mini-Series with Mesa Schumacher
We’re exploring creativity in information design from the perspective of amazingly creative people in the field! If it’s not a magical process, then what is it? Let’s hear how Mesa Schumacher approaches creativity. Mesa Schumacher is a science artist currently living in Fiji who specializes in communicating complex ideas through illustration, infographics, and animation. Mesa's work can be found in National Geographic and Scientific American, on signage at the National Zoo, in academia, and on giant puzzles! We dive into how she defines creativity, what her routines are, what kills her creativity, how she presents creative ideas to clients…and more! Shownotes Volunteer to be a Beta reader for my creativity book!
76: Creativity Mini-Series with Andy Kirk
We’re exploring creativity in information design from the perspective of amazingly creative people in the field! If it’s not a magical process, then what is it? Let’s hear how Andy Kirk approaches creativity. We dive into how he defines creativity, what his routines are, what kills his creativity, how he presents creative ideas to clients, where he finds inspiration…and more! Shownotes Volunteer to be a Beta reader for my creativity book!
75: Creativity Mini-Series with Stefanie Posavec
Today, I’m launching a mini-series all about creativity in information design. If you’re like me and came from a data background, communicating information in creative ways can feel a bit like a magical process, so over this series, I’ll invite creative information designers and dive into their process: What are their routines, what kills their creativity, how do they present creative ideas to others…and more! Let’s hear how Stefanie Posavec approaches creativity in information design… Show notes: https://dataviztoday.com/shownotes/75 Stefanie Posavec's work Sign up to be a Beta reader for my new book on creativity in information communication!
74: What It's Like Being a Data Journalist — Featuring Danielle Alberti
Today, we have Danielle Alberti on the show to share a behind-the-scenes look at how to become and be a data journalist! She's the editor of the data visualization team at Axios and shares: What's a typical day as a data journalist Which skills are important What she looks for in a resume and portfolio when hiring for a data journalist position What she would do differently if she were starting her data journalist career over again This interview with Danielle was the special opening segment to the Elevate Learning Community conference — you can watch the whole conference with thoughtful talks about information design here: https://elevatedataviz.com/live Full shownotes: https://dataviztoday.com/shownotes/74
73: 3 Ways to Analyze Time Series Data Without Losing Nuance — Featuring Zan Armstrong
Today, we have Zan Armstrong with us to share 3 simple alternatives to aggregating time series data in the usual ways so you don’t lose important nuance. It’s so easy to get pushed into aggregating data a certain way by our software so being aware of some alternatives is really helpful when you’re analyzing and visualizing data. Show notes: https://dataviztoday.com/shownotes/73
BONUS: Top Tips on Creating a Data Viz Brief
I walk you through my process for creating a data viz brief and how to use it! If you're interested in a short training and getting a copy of the data viz brief template that I use with my clients, shoot me an email with the subject line "INTERESTED!" and if there's enough interest, I'll host a live training! hello@allitorban.com
72: How to Add Strategy Sessions to Your Data Viz Workflow — Featuring Liz Hatherley
When you’re kicking off a data viz project, do you have a series of questions that you ask to uncover the goals, audience, and data? Want to know how to kick it up a notch? I know I do! Recently, I had the pleasure of working with Liz Hatherley, whose whole expertise is wrapped up in pulling this kind of information out of her clients, which has led to incredibly smooth dataviz projects! In this episode, Liz shares more about what kinds of questions she’s asking in her discovery workshops and how we, as data viz designers, can start integrating more strategic thinking into our own workflows. Let's go! Show notes: https://dataviztoday.com/shownotes/72
71: Demystifying the Freelance Dataviz Process
Join the Elevate Membership Program! I invited a few of the best dataviz designers and freelancers I know on the show today (Duncan Geere, Gabrielle Merite, and Will Chase) and we absolutely stuffed the hour with as many dataviz freelancing tips as we possibly could! In this episode, we demystify the whole process: starting from when someone emails you that they’re interested in your work, what you should write back, what you should ask in the discovery call, basics to include in your contract, tips on how to price your work, tools we use to prototype our visualizations, how to present your work to your client, navigating through feedback rounds, and more! I told you this episode is packed!! Let’s go… Show notes: https://dataviztoday.com/shownotes/71
70: My 3 Biggest Lessons Learned in 2021
Today I’m calling out the biggest things I learned in the past year. There’s just something about naming it that helps me remember to keep doing it in the new year and even how I can take it up a notch in the next year. In this episode, I’ll highlight the three biggest lessons I learned this year, and they all stem from better communication with clients, ourselves, and with our colleagues. Let’s get to it! Show notes: https://dataviztoday.com/shownotes/70 Elevate Membership waitlist: https://forms.gle/wBDXYYm3rEawY3pPA