Static on Visual Cinnamon

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 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.

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.

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!