This week’s Makeover Monday was all about wind power, and in particular how Texas leads the way with their investment in wind turbines. Pretty cool dataset… but let me pause right here.
I’ve gotten in to a bad habit lately… and I say that speaking about my own data visualization practices an not anyone else’s… but I’d fallen in to a rut. it happens to me on occasion and I find various ways to break out of it, but this time I went back to a tried and true method; Putting Pen to Paper.
I loaded up the dataset in Tableau Public, and explored around bit, created a couple of calculations, tried a couple of things and then I found what I thought would make a good story. Form there, I stop and closed Tableau. Then I went to my bookshelf, grabbed my sketching pad and my 24 pack of PrismaColor Pencils.
Form here, I started sketching out ideas for the story, how it would flow, what I wanted to highlight, what my outcome could be… basically a few different angles on the same story until I got happy with a particular path, then I sketched out that as a “final draft” on a new sheet of paper.
Next I headed to the Noun Project, where I happily subscribe so I can use all their delicious fonts with no guilt, to find a few items for possible inclusion.
Next, I headed over to Canva.com to create a few headers for myself to include in the visualization to break out of my Tableau Bold font-rut.
Now I had my tool box assembled, the actual construction of the visualization started and I flew through it with ease because I had removed a lot of the guess work. Granted, as things came in to their final positions I added some new elements to enhance the story, but I was fairly true to my drawing.
Next time you feel you are in a rut, don’t be afraid to break out of your patterns and try a new approach, find a new inspiration, or just pause and step away… sometime it’s the most effective thing you can do!