Have you heard of the Information Is Beautiful (IIB) awards? It’s one of the most prestigious data visualization competitions, held annually.
This week, the longlist (first round of selections) was announced, and 3 out of my 3 projects made it! 🎉
One of them is called:
Getting Older
Yes, it’s my birthday today (and I'm getting way too old), but that’s not what this project is about. 🙃
It’s a visual essay exploring how populations age across different countries. Some nations are experiencing rapid aging, others are in the middle of a baby boom, and some have unusual demographic shifts while others remain surprisingly stable.
Another look at population pyramids! This is the top view of the project.
To bring these patterns to life, I designed organic, animated, and interactive shapes that allow you to dive deep into these demographic trends.
This project is both highly custom and highly interactive.
The only way to create a project like this is to use javascript, the programming language that runs websites. Several libraries helped me. React allows to make complex user interfaces, and it works very well with d3.js (a dataviz lib) once you understood how to do it properly. Also, a bit of the magic comes from react-spring, a library allowing to implement spring animations. It allows to create transitions like this:
It's not easy to create interactive viz projects like this. But once you tasted it, there is no coming back! 😀 If you're curious, I'm trying to explain all the concepts in my react graph gallery. Any specific question on the tech topic, please let me know! 🙏
The Art–Science Cursor
Every time we create a chart, we face a tradeoff: should we prioritize accuracy or aesthetics?
If you're designing for a scientific paper, precision is key. Labels must be large, axes are non-negotiable, and color contrast needs to be maximized.
But if you’re crafting a chart for social media or a magazine, where grabbing attention matters more than precise numbers, you can take creative liberties to make the design more engaging. This is what I've done with this "getting older" project. ✨
This week on LinkedIn, we debated the usefulness of streamgraphs. Sure, they can be harder to read than stacked area charts, but they’re also visually striking. So in my opinion, they’re the right choice sometimes!
Takeaway
Next time you create a chart, think about where you should be on that science vs. art spectrum.
There’s no single right answer! It all depends on your audience and the story you’re telling.
Cheers, Yan PS: Some people push the cursor far toward the art side: that’s called Data Art. I love it and have a project in mind about it, so let me know if you know any great data artists!
