Static on Visual Cinnamon

Rays

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I was asked by a private equity firm to create a collection of artworks to celebrate the history of the company using the company’s data. The final collection, drawn using millions of tiny dots, consists of a main piece, two specific specializations and a set of five vibrantly colored monochrome versions.

Growing Cities

Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In collaboration with the EPFL Laboratory of Urban and Environmental Systems, I transformed their scientific research on global urban growth into an aesthetic data artwork. By visualizing how cities like Shanghai and Beijing have evolved over two decades, I created an A0-sized piece that brings their findings to a wider audience in a beautiful, art-oriented way. The team aimed to move beyond traditional scientific charts to showcase their research through a more engaging lens. The design ensures that while the end result looks like abstract art at first glance, upon closer inspection, the viewer can clearly discern the underlying urban growth trends and individual city morphology.

EU Data Stories

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Publications Office of the European Union asked me to create the data visualizations to accompany three of their monthly Data Stories, creating three relatively straightforward visuals per story. Each story focuses on a different topic relevant to the EU, and the visualizations are designed to be both informative and engaging, helping to communicate key insights from the data. During 2025 I created three stories: the first story focused on the future, looking at the “2025–2027 Horizon Europe strategic plan,” the second had a whimsical air as it explored leisure time across the EU, and the third took a deep dive into health and well-being statistics. For the first half of 2026, I created two more stories: about travel patterns in the EU and one about the adoption of AI.

The Radius Gap

Mon, 19 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Scientific American commissioned me to create a data visualization for an article exploring the “radius gap.” This is a puzzling absence of exoplanets within a specific size range, larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. The goal was to illustrate this phenomenon in a way that was both scientifically accurate and visually compelling. Rather than relying on a traditional scatterplot, I aimed to design something more engaging while still making the data accessible to readers. The final visualization, inspired by sci-fi aesthetics, uses a polar plot with density contour lines to highlight the two distinct populations of exoplanets: Super-Earths and Sub-Neptunes. This approach not only made the radius gap apparent but also provided a striking, intuitive way to compare these distant worlds to our own solar system.

The Top 10 Best Selling Nintendo Switch Games

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A visualization about the top 10 best-selling Nintendo Switch games, as of June 30th, 2024 created with Blender. I made this visualization specifically for my (upcoming) book about creative data visualization, showing how you can look outside of the “standard” tools and software and be inspired by other fields to create captivating and unique visualizations of data.

I gave myself one week to learn Blender and create a unique and custom data visualization using a relatively simple dataset. It was frustrating at the start, as there is much to learn when starting to use Blender. However, the more time I spent fine-tuning the visual, the more I enjoyed the process. Especially when I got to play with materials and lighting and really see the reason I wanted to try Blender in the first place: that realistic result of 3D with shadows and a visual look that can’t be achieved using the more regular data visualization tools.

The Amsterdam Startup Landscape

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

ACE was preparing for the soft launch of their rebrand to Cæmpus. They tasked me with analyzing data from the past decade (and beyond), during which they supported academic entrepreneurs in starting and growing their companies. My goal was to identify trends and interesting patterns that could be shared with the audience at the event. Additionally, during the event we highlighted the gaps in the existing data, emphasizing the importance of contributions from the community to ensure that future entrepreneurs can benefit from the collective experience.

The 100 Tallest Buildings in the World

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This self-initiated data visualization appeared in the third issue of Nightingale, the printed journal of the Data Visualization Society. The theme of the issue was guidelines and with this visual, I embrace one of the main “taboos” within data visualization: 3D (bar) charts. It is accompanied by a short article that explains how you can go beyond the guidelines and rules when you have the right reasons.

Using a 3D perspective in data visualization is generally only to the detriment of the visual, and for good reason. However, when I started playing with the dataset of the 100 tallest buildings in the world, and noticed that they all fall within a rather narrow band of heights (apart from the tallest handful), I knew that comparing exact heights would not be the main point of visualizing this dataset. Instead, seeing that more than half of those buildings are in China, that most of them are offices, and which buildings once were the tallest (and for how long) became the insights that I wanted the visual to focus on.

Global Plastics Outlook

Mon, 06 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

For the Global Plastics Outlook published by the OECD in June of 2022 I was asked to create 4 of the visualizations. About the flow of plastics in 2019 and how it would grow to 2060, visualizing the leakage into our rivers and oceans of plastic, about the life cycle analysis of several polymers, and the change in GDP for all countries between 2019 and 2060.

I was asked to tackle the four visuals from the report that the client felt were the most difficult to handle, such as showing a flow while also being able to compare two years.

Space Wars

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I created a visualization of all the satellites that are still active in space for the “Space Wars” article that was published in the November 2020 edition of Scientific American. By keeping each satellite as a separate circle, but grouping them by the two most important variables, country and orbit, the visualization reveals a very detailed look into the satellites, while not becoming overwhelming to the viewer.

The art director specifically asked to not create a visual with circles around the Earth, but to convey “the state of things”, with a specific focus on the country that owned each satellite, what orbit they occupied, and its class (business, defense, etc). The dataset contained many more interesting variables however, such as launch date, usage category, mass, which I also wanted to convey. I therefore kept each satellite represented as a circle, giving me the opportunity to style each satellite very specifically, such as making it more transparent if it was older and sizing it by its mass. I then created a treemap like clustering of these satellites into a “grid” showing country versus orbit, to highlight those two variables most clearly.

Re-imagining music’s ‘Gold Record’ with Data Art

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Sony Music reached out to collaborate on creating a data-driven re-imagination of the ‘gold record’, the record certifications plaques that celebrate milestones in the journey of a song or album. Using data from the music itself and from Spotify and Youtube, such as the streams, playlists and chart positions, I created a data art system that creates a unique poster that shows the “data fingerprint” for each song. These posters are meant to be printed at the same size as the original gold records, at 40x50cm. I therefore had a lot of room to add visual details from the elaborate datasets. I aimed for a type of work that should be placed on a wall and every time you walk by, you can read a bit more and learn something new for weeks and months. Something that’s worth it to print and frame, that keeps on giving insights the longer you look. Something that you can appreciate visually in an instant, but it takes longer to gain insights (should you even want to).

Satellite Surge

Mon, 29 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I created a visualization showing the rise and recent surge of the number of satellites that orbit Earth for the “Graphic Science” page of the May 2020 issue of the Scientific American. The art director specifically requested a visual that wouldn’t be a more typical “visual that shows the satellites as dots around the Earth” and wanted something more visually bold. I designed a visual that really focuses on showing the numbers and being able to see the sudden rise in the 1-10 kg range for the “Lower” Low Earth orbit in the bottom right.

Hubble's 30-year legacy

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In celebration of the Hubble Space Telescope’s 30-year anniversary in April 2020 I created two static visualizations for Physics Today, to be used in their series of articles on Hubble’s history. The main visual became a full poster that revealed more than 550,000 observations in a map of the sky, while highlighting some of the most famous observations and photos. The second visual was created as a companion piece outlining the different target classifications of Hubble’s observations. Originally only meant to appear online, the client was so enthusiastic about the main visual that it was adapted and published as a gate-fold in their April issue of the Physics Today magazine as well.

A sky map of the Hubble Space Telescope's observations

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 10:00:00 +0000

In celebration of the Hubble Space Telescope’s 30-year anniversary in April 2020 I created an extensive visualization, more of fully-fledged poster really, for Physics Today. Let me show you how the static visuals that I made still became one of the biggest projects I’ve ever worked on in terms of hours invested. I could’ve called this blog post “the impact of small design choices” because the main issue wasn’t necessarily what type of chart form to use. It was really how to display the datapoints (Hubble’s observations) in the chosen chart form (a map of the sky) to reveal both details and the bigger picture.

Visualizing the different astronomy targets that Hubble has observed

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 09:00:00 +0000

Besides a visualization that plotted Hubble’s observation on a map in the sky, I created another dataviz for Physics Today to celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope’s 30 year anniversary in April 2020. Revealing the types of astronomy targets that Hubble has been looking at. In this design blog I’ll take you through the design process that led to the final visual.

The Fermi Paradox

Wed, 26 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

One of the main articles in the January 2020 edition of the Scientific American was about a new simulation that had been performed to address the Fermi Paradox (if there are aliens, why haven’t we met). Scientific American was looking for a full spread visualization to accompany the article. After reading though the scientific paper and draft of the Scientific American article, I proposed to visualize the final state of the simulation, showing a tiny cube of space. I felt this would reveal the main insight best to a more general audience; that it’s perfectly possible for our Milky Way to be settled by alien civilizations, but that our Earth happens to be in a local void, currently unreachable.

Highly Hazardous Pesticides

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Unearthed, the journalistic arm of Greenpeace, was doing a large scale investigation together with Public Eye, an NGO from Switzerland, on the sales of hazardous pesticides by the CropLife companies. I was approached by Unearthed to help them create eye-catching visuals to accompany the different conclusions that came out of the investigation. These visuals would be used in the articles both parties were writing. Taking into account the broad scope of audiences, from both a general readership to eventual use by experts, I advised to go for a set of static visuals, each with a version for desktop and mobile, which would be visually distinct and still effective in revealing the underlying insights.

Kantar's MotiveMix

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Kantar Consulting reached out to me to help them visualize their MotiveMix dataset. This dataset looks at American consumers along 12 “attitudinal dimensions”, such as Tech Disposition, Environmentalism, Cultural Connection, and more, to better understand what is important to consumers in the counties across the US. I created two very different pieces for this project. One being a large static poster that looks at each dimension per US state to see which states show interesting behaviors (e.g. different from most other states). The other was an animation that reveals how counties could show very similar values for the attitudinal dimensions, even though they are from completely different parts of the US, thereby transcending the typical geographic proximity that more traditional analysis tend to focus on.

A Real-World Exploration of the Janssen Product Portfolio

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I created a large poster for Janssen that provides an overview of the ingredients within their product portfolio, and the extent to which those ingredients are observed across a network of healthcare data that is available throughout the Johnson & Johnson enterprise. Revealing insights such as seasonality in use, and in which areas of the world the ingredients are taken the most. This poster was created to make the employees of Johnson & Johnson, the mother company of Janssen, aware of the wealth of data that they have at their disposal to do research.

Digital Trackers

Mon, 26 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The New York Times had done a fascinating research on the insane number of digital trackers that you gather when you browse the web, well, anywhere. This resulted in a large dataset of trackers and metadata about what these trackers gathered and from which domain / company they originated. The New York Times reached out to me to help turn this large dataset into an eye-catching and illustrative visualization that would go in both the printed edition and online, revealing just how much information is being gathered on on the web that most of us never know or ever see.

Adyen's Shareholder Report

Wed, 27 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Adyen wanted to feature more then just text and tables in their second ever shareholder letter & annual report and reached out to me to help them. Looking at the data that is presented in the report, I looked at what information would lend itself to be visualized in an interesting and effective manner. This eventually turned into the creation of four more extensive visuals about the income statement, costs, regional and FTE growth.

A Year in Flights

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 14:11:52 +0200

This data art piece conveys the intricacies of a year’s worth of flights performed by Transavia, a Dutch airline. Each flight is turned into an abstract shape whose appearance is completely determined by the meta-data of that flight. Together they create a piece that is unique and crafted only from Transavia’s own data that still conveys general trends (holidays, destination shifts depending on season, charter flights, etc.), while also having an artistic feel. The final piece, measuring 3m x 1.5m, was placed in Transavia’s office to remind employees about the vast amounts of data that they can use in their day-to-day work.

Meet the neighbors

Wed, 14 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This visual shows all the stars that we’ve discovered within 20 light years from our Solar system, and the exoplanets belonging to 12 of those stars. When comparing the types of stars, it becomes clear that most are found around M-type stars. That is why projects such as NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has a prioritized list of similar type stars to look for even more exoplanets. The visual appeared in the 2017 December issue of the Scientific American.

Creating the Scientific American “Baby Spike” visual

Tue, 31 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

On the Graphic Science page of the July edition of Scientific American you could find three large circular charts about when babies are born. In this blog, let me take you along on the data & designs process that me, Zan Armstrong & Jen Christiansen went through to create this piece.

The Baby Spike

Sun, 01 Oct 2017 13:39:08 +0000

Charts often aggregate across time to simplify the numbers. Instead, for this visual made for Scientific American, the focus has been on visualizing the number of babies born across different time frames; from weeks down to the minute, to reveal the role of scheduling & intervention in births. Nuanced insights about data design, visual form, and graphic design resulted in these unique charts that compare the birth of babies to the average. And people have much more influence than expected!

The Top 2000 ❤ the 70s & 80s

Thu, 29 Dec 2016 13:15:12 +0000

This infographic looks at the Top 2000 songs ever made and how they are spread according to their year of release. From the 60’s in the bottom left corner to 2016 in the top right, each song is represented by a circle. The circles are sized according to their position in the Top 2000 and the darker a circle, the higher the position it reached in the weekly top 40s. Several groups of special songs are highlighted. Such as all 38 tracks from the Beatles in blue, David Bowie in yellow and Prince in purple, while the top 10 is made even more apparent by making them appear as tiny vinyl records. The infographic shows that the 70s & 80s are still the most appreciated era’s in terms of music.

Magic is Everywhere

Wed, 30 Nov 2016 08:00:40 +0000

In Magic is Everywhere I’ve investigated the titles of ±900 fantasy books to look for trends in their titles. Magic is the most common word in all titles. Followed by fire, dark & red. In general, terms relating to unpleasant things are more common than those relating to positive aspects. Nevertheless, titles relating directly to magic can be found throughout the visual, indicating that the one thing that binds fantasy books together is, not surprisingly, Magic.

The Art in Pi

Sat, 24 Jan 2015 12:57:37 +0000

A visualization that turns the digits of the number π into a visual presentation. Each digit is converted into a certain direction to step. With 360 degrees of a circle, divided into 10 step directions. You can follow the path that the digits make and how this is always random, no matter if you look at 100, 1000, or even a million digits.

After seeing the examples of Martin Krzywinski’s π art work I wanted to venture into the world of data art myself. My idea of using the digits of π to step into a certain direction certainly isn’t new, but most versions I could find had first converted pi into another base (4 or 16 for example). Therefore, I went ahead with just keeping it in base 10. I plotted and colored the data in R and then imported the PDF into Illustrator to add some text and legends.