What makes for good graphic design for graphs? That is the question on my mind as of late.

Below is a graph from the St. Louis federal reserve publication National Economic Trends. Simple and to the point for a brief time series. The publication also has other, more complicated time-series charts, most of which are nicely done with a minimum of chart-junk.

But more complicated graphics stress the limits of the black-and-white, for-print design.

Political scientist turned graphic designer Edward Tufte used to be the go-to guy for this kind of question, but the Visual Display of Quantitative Information is starting to look a bit dated.

It would be nice to have a collection of well-done data-based charts and graphs to use as reference and for brainstorming.... just a thought.

Pretty charts wanted. | Posted December 2, 2007 11:23 PM by John Irons