Dataviz Universe

👋 Hi! Welcome to the very first issue of Dataviz Universe in 2026. I hope you had a great break if you took some time off at the end of 2025?I’m just getting back to work this week, so I thought it was a good moment to quickly remind you what this newsletter is about and what you can expect from me this year. Who am I? I’m Yan! 👋I’m genuinely in love with data visualization. For years, I’ve spent a good share of my nights and weekends building free educational resources like Data to Viz,...

👋 Hi, Hard to believe, but this is already the last issue of the year. Since January, I have shared one dataviz or programming tip every Saturday. If you missed a few or want to share them with a friend, you can find all previous issues here. To wrap up the year, I suggest we do a small chart remake together? Chart remake This year, I taught data visualization to 2,182 people through my online courses (R, ggplot2, matplotlib). Each course includes a #share-your-viz channel where students can...

👋 Good evening!This week has been kind of a rough one on my side. A client dropped me. Two people asked for a course refund. Two others canceled their portfolio subscription. 😔 At the same time, I see so many ppl on LinkedIn claiming that if you are still an employee, you have wasted your life. That freelancing is the only path to freedom. Putting those two things together makes me want to write about the less visible side of being a dataviz freelancer. I am not complaining. I love my...

👋 Hi! This week I teamed up with Cédric Scherer to work on the third module of our ggplot2 uncharted project. We just released a new lesson on a part of the chart that many people overlook: the title. The Neglected Detail You probably know the feeling. You spend hours polishing a graphic. You are tired but happy with the result. The last step is the title and you think it will only take a few seconds. But treating the title as an afterthought is a mistake! A good one elevates the entire piece...

👋 Hi! This week has been quite crazy for me! I've setup a Black Friday offer for my 3 courses, resulting in about hundred new students so far 😳!If you want to grab one of my course at half price, there is a bit more than 24h left!- productive-r-workflow.com- ggplot2-uncharted.com- Matplotlib-journey.com It made me pause and look back at everything I've built over 12 years of dataviz educational projects. I use these tools every day myself, so I thought they could serve you as well! The graph...

👋 Hi! Today I want to talk about a feeling that followed me for years at work. About 12 years ago I started as a data analyst in academia. I worked on genetics data, ran my own projects, and helped dozens of researchers with theirs. I even wrote some publications! That’s my wheat field, diagnosed with a disease called WSSMV. Good memories! :) It was exciting and I loved it. But as a junior analyst there was one thought that haunted me every single day: If someone walks into my office and asks...

👋 Hi! Most weeks, this newsletter brings one practical dataviz tip you can apply right away. You can read past issues and subscribe here.Today I want to tackle something different, because I keep getting the same question: how do you get a job in the data world, and how do you switch from another field? And even if you already have a job, this still matters. As I wrote recently, you are always looking for your next one. I am not a recruiter and I would not claim to be a job market expert. But...

👋 Hi! Yesterday this newsletter hit 15k subscribers. I never imagined sharing weekly actionable dataviz tips would reach so many people — thank you. All past issues are here. If you found something useful, please forward this email to a friend! Today I suggest we talk about using unconventional or complex charts, and how to get people to actually adopt them. Unconventional graphs Data To Viz lists about 50 chart types. Yet the vast majority of charts you see are one of ~six common types. That...

👋 Hi! Last week, we talked about using color with intent (not just for decoration) and recalled the three only suitable reasons for using it in a chart. Today, I suggest we add another foundational piece: understanding how to define a color properly. Defining a color on a computer There are several ways to define colors digitally. Here are the most common: a name like "skyblue", an RGB triplet, where you specify the amount of Red, Green, and Blue, or a hex code, which is just the RGB values...

👋 Hi! These days, Cédric Scherer and I are writing the lessons about color for our ggplot2 Uncharted project. It’s a big work! The main message of the lesson is something crucial: Great visualizations don’t use color just for decoration: they use it with intent. There are only three valid reasons to use color. Let's review them! 1️⃣ Colors to represent values Use color to encode data in a perceptually linear way.The goal: emphasize one end of a range (sequential palette) or both ends...