collection visitor contributed this postcard cute-angle view of SF bay

The first phase of digitizing my collection has come to an end. I am very grateful to my students, they did a wonderful job! The result: three massive Hungarian statistical atlases that are unavailable anywhere else, and dozens of data graphics that have never been digitized before. To be continued!

Amphora diversity—of shape and use—over time in Mediterranean trade during the Roman era. (Bevan, Andrew. “Mediterranean Containerization.” Current Anthropology 55, no. 4 (2014): 387–418. doi.org/10.1086/6770...)

The City of Ottawa posted the raw speed data from before and after Doug Ford banned speed cameras and the effect is so obvious it's not even necessary put a line marking when that happened. This chart shows the percentage of drivers going 15km/h or more over the posted limit.

Happy Mortar's Day to all who celebrate... Shocking pink mortar from a c. 1505 munitions manuscript at the Yale Center for British Art! collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/alma...

Divorce, by occupations: flowingdata.com/2026/05/07/d... Actuaries, professional estimators of risk and very on brand, are the outlier with the lowest rate.

Earth eclipses the Sun as seen by Artemis II on Orion. Satellites showing off as usual...

Some Pier 39 snaps while on Chonkers watch for @sfchronicle.com 🦭

I am team Lajos Illyefalvi www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet...

I'll come back to the 10 topical chapters and their key messages later, you can find some of these highlighted in this post on the World Bank Data Blog: blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/... Bottom line: the speed of global progress has slowed down, and is now at its slowest pace in 75 years 3/n

One of my customers, Miya Frohmeier, took a picture of me with her vintage camera. She just got the film developed.

Day 126 of #365DaysOfMaps. May 6th is World Carnivorous Plant Day. So it's a silly one from me today though you might look at it as a visual metaphor for a lot going on right now. Carnivorous World (126/365) mapdesign.icaci.org/2026/05/worl...

now THAT's a book cover

This is a stunning chart in the NYT.

Forget Trump. This made me cry a bit. The good of America will win.

“The wayfinder does not separate the stars from the currents from the canoe from themselves. They are a single field of orientation. And when the navigator wants to know how high a star is … they do not reach for an instrument. They extend their own arm.” open.substack.com/pub/seanstev...

At the conclusion of my first year of teaching with the Type West program at @letterformarchive.org, the class of 2019 produced this picture – which I still think is amazing. typewest2019.com/about/

#statsmeme Greeks & shields

Sorry, here I am with more Boston in 50 Maps promo! This was a simple map, but nevertheless it was one of my favorites: a map of the places and events in Make Way For Ducklings. The story seems to take place in a Boston that always was and always will be, so it just seemed like an essential map.

I 3D-printed a Cheysson-style map of France showing the modal number of salutatory cheek-kisses in each department. It took ages. 3dartmaps.etsy.com/listing/4490...

And hey, I’ve made a billboard before as it turns out, prominent on Woodward Ave for half a year! An anti-auto and not coincidentally anti-conformity message that I reworked many years later for the opening to Unflattening! Would love to do something similar here… spinweaveandcut.com/slow-streets...

Ozzy's crazy touring train. A map on vinyl.

Lot of circles this week

“But how close would the Goodnight Moon have to be for it to appear as big as it does in the book? It would be orbiting at about 39,000 km, or 10x closer to the Earth! For reference, that’s inside the orbit of geosychronous satellites at 42,164 km!” burritojustice.com/2014/03/07/g...

The cover for this week’s Future Issue is “New Horizons,” by Christoph Niemann. See what’s inside: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/Aifa_g

Whoa 🤯 The Moon, in full eclipse, with the #Artemis II Orion spacecraft. Part of the Moon and spacecraft are lit by Earthshine, and both Saturn and Mars are visible to the lower right. Incredible. Details: images.nasa.gov/details/art0...

I went looking for one Japanese chart book and ended up with 19 prewar volumes, a new collecting method, and a stronger conviction that graphic history is far from fully known. www.chartography.net/p/ascending-...

uh oh

“Copy Moon joy” #Artemis

Ohh, no! :( www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/c...

NASA just dropped this image of Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch looking back at us. The first woman to ever see our planet in its entirety. I’m not crying you’re crying 🥹🔭🧪 📸: NASA

At a certain point, I was no longer finding books. I was discovering a world: chart-rich, prewar, often beautiful, and in some cases likely never before shelved in this hemisphere. www.chartography.net/p/ascending-...

Come check out our #dataviz gallery in the NYC subway! We officially open next weekend but the exterior mural is up 24/7 for the next YEAR!!

Sneak peek inside the @datavandals.bsky.social Newsstand!! Opens Friday 7-9pm!!

S!

I went looking for one Japanese chart book and ended up with 19 prewar volumes, a new collecting method, and a stronger conviction that graphic history is far from fully known. www.chartography.net/p/ascending-...

thud post coming to Chartography.net soonish

Proud of this chart title www.economist.com/culture/2026...

“a term that can split a world into hip and square, classic and romantic, technological and humanistic, is an entity that can unite a world already split along these lines into one. A real understanding of Quality”

Vibes today

World War 2 ‘Mild Weather is Your Chance to Save Fuel' poster by Beverley Pick c. 1944 www.1stdibs.com/art/prints-w...

If you'd like to skip the story and just play with all the graphics and #dataviz, that's okay too! Here's a link directly to the explorer diagramchasing.fun/2026/portrai...

I've been persuaded by @infowetrust.com's recent arguments about using "chartmaking", instead of more technical terms such as "information design" or "data visualization", to refer to what we do

We’re down here in the subway!!! @datavandals.bsky.social

Where oil and gas normally travel by tanker ship from the Persian Gulf. A story by @lazarogamio.bsky.social, Blacki Migliozzi and River Akira Davis 🎁 tinyurl.com/5dd83fk3 #sankey

"Mapping Britain’s hedgerows" Helen Atkinson for @economist.com theeconomistoffthecharts.substack.com/p/mapping-br...

🌞

tonight I learned about Heinrich Kley