David McCandless is a writer, designer and creative director located in London who is best known for his data visualisation. He focuses mostly on taking the more boring data and transforming it into something that is informative but is also clearer to understand. Through his work he uses a range of illustrations and colours such as on his Ultimate data dog where he displayed all the breeds of dogs and categorised them in a very visually pleasing way.

I really admire his skills to take simple data and transform it into something that is so much more informative and fun which encourages people to want to learn and expand their knowledge.

I also watched a Ted talk by McCandless which outlined the beauty of data visualisation. As I previously mentioned McCandless is known for his skills of visualising the more complex of information in more meaningful but also pretty ways.

Through his TED talk he explains how visualising data can help so many people explore information easier and share his beliefs on how it allows people to connect with the information being displayed on a more personal and emotional level.

Some of the visualisations I like the most which he showed was a map showing the worlds most spoken languages as well as the most common death causes in the US. It is amazing how he can take this standard data and create something that is both informative, engaging and beautiful!!

He really uses this talk as a way to teach us that when designing data visualisation we must find the correct balance so it is both informative but also looks pleasing and eye catching to others and how design is most effective when we incorporate the use of colour, shaping and layout alongside our data.

This TED talk allowed me to build a better understanding on the importance of how we visualise our data and the impact we can create for others who view our visualisations by telling a story and building connections.