Knowing a little of the fundamentals really helps you appreciate why people always create such giant PowerPoint files all the time by mistake (hint: the standard screen capture pastes as a bitmap) and why images go grainy on the Internet or load really slow.

Understanding gifs, bitmaps and jpegs

Principles from Edward Tufte. Remove chart junk. Erase redundant and non-data-ink. Above all else show the data.

Of course the present infographic trend laughs in the face of these principles in the interests of trying to encourage people to actually look at the data in the first place. But, assuming you actually want people to seriously infer some meaning from the data, these are not bad principles to follow when constructing your data graphics. Some basic Excel templates could do with a clean up for example.

Maximise data-ink

From the video Wealth Inequality in America

Get my new weekly sketch in your inbox

Wealth inequality in America