The Art of Insight

Learn how expert data visualization designers reason about their craft

In The Art of Insight: How Great Visualization Designers Think, renowned visualization designer and educator Alberto Cairo, in conversation with several leaders in the field, delivers an inspiring exploration of how they make design choices. The book is a celebration of visualization, and a personal journey that dives into subjects like:

• How the professional background and life experiences of every designer shape their choices of what to visualize and how to visualize it.
• What designers from different countries and cultures, and working in different fields, such as data art, data analytics, or data journalism, have in common, or how they differ from each other.
• How designers reflect on research, ethical reasoning, and also aesthetic judgments, to make decisions such as selecting the most appropriate ways to encode data, or the most appealing visual style.

Perfect for data scientists and data journalists, The Art of Insight will also inspire artists, analysts, statisticians, and any other professional who uses data visualizations.

About the author xii

A note on typography xiii

Introduction: On Magic (with Shirley Wu) 3

Part I: Pragmatists 17

Chapter 1: Unruly Stripes (with Ed Hawkins) 19

Chapter 2: A World of Conversation 29

Part 2: Eccentrics 43

Chapter 3: The Eternal Wanderer (with Jaime Serra) 45

Chapter 4: A Certain Inner Light (with Nadieh Bremer) 59

Chapter 5: A Mindful Artisan (with Sonja Kuijpers) 71

Chapter 6: Living Visualization (with Pedro Cruz) 79

Chapter 7: Data and Persons (with Federica Fragapane) 89

Chapter 8: Souls Before Numbers (with Mohamad Waked) 101

Coda 108

Part 3: Ambassadors 113

Chapter 9: Building Bridges (with Allen Hillery) 115

Chapter 10: The Good Fighter (with Amanda Makulec) 127

Chapter 11: Making Data Friendly (with Alli Torban) 139

Chapter 12: A Reporter Among Engineers (with Aaron Williams) 149

Chapter 13: The Therapy of Visualization (with Deniz Cem Önduygu) 159

Chapter 14: The Public Intellectual (with Attila Bátorfy) 171

Chapter 15: The Discerning Outsider (with Harkanwal Singh) 183

Second Coda 192

Part 4: Narrators 197

Chapter 16: A Journalism of Care (with Alyssa Fowers) 199

Chapter 17: No Treasure Hunts (with Lena Groeger) 209

Chapter 18: Smart Brevity (with Danielle Alberti, Jacque Schrag, and Will Chase) 219

Chapter 19: Visceral Visualizations (with Gurman Bhatia) 231

Chapter 20: The Determined Learner (with Jane Pong) 241

Chapter 21: The Jack-of-All-Trades (with Simon Ducroquet) 251

Chapter 22: A Journalist at War (with Anatoliy Bondarenko) 261

Epilogue: Teachers, Mentors, and Meaning 271

Acknowledgments 280

Bibliography 282

Index 286

PRAISE FOR the art of insight

“Alberto Cairo’s The Art of Insight delves into the lives of numerous designers and what has shaped them. Each chapter showcases stunning examples, but also life stories and the motivations that informed choices. I laughed, I cried, I cheered, but perhaps most importantly, I caught glimpses of myself and my own story.”
—Bridget Cogley, co-author of Functional Aesthetics for Data Visualization and Chief Visualization Officer at Versalytix

“This book is a breath of fresh air following the exhaustion of the pandemic! Cairo has crafted a pragmatic, inspiring reflection on the process and purpose of contemporary data visualization.”
—Catherine D’Ignazio, Associate Professor and Director of the Data + Feminism Lab, MIT, and co-author of Data Feminism

“This book is a much-needed demonstration of the opposite of superficial critique, and the data visualization world will be better off for it.”
—Ben Jones, Co-Founder and CEO of Data Literacy

“Alberto Cairo brings us along on his exploration of the new and different ways designers are visualizing our world. It’s an uplifting journey to get a glimpse into the perspectives and processes of these creative data artists.”
—Randy Krum, visualization designer, author of Cool Infographics: Effective Communication with Data Visualization and Design, and Founder of InfoNewt

“Practitioners of data visualization and storytelling hope to get people to see, understand, and feel differently about data. The Art of Insight has me thinking differently about the field of data visualization and storytelling itself. Cairo’s intimate and caring interviews and commentary are revealing, thought-provoking, and most of all, inspiring.”
—Steve Wexler, Professional chart Looker-atter, co-author of The Big Book of Dashboards, and author of The Big Picture

“Visualization stretches beyond reports and sterile charts to uses more tightly coupled with real life, which is full of beauty, complexity, and stories. With The Art of Insight, Alberto Cairo places the full field on display. Learn the design and analysis processes of those in less traditional visualization roles, alongside Alberto’s unique perspective, and your own data work will benefit, wherever that may be.”
—Nathan Yau, statistician, FlowingData.com