David McCandless makes infographics and draws beautiful conclusions from complex datasets thus revealing unexpected insights into our world. He uses simple, elegant ways to see information that might be too complex or too big, small, abstract or scattered to otherwise be grasped. In his book, Information Is Beautiful (in the US, it’s being called The Visual Miscellaneum), David McCandless and his cadre of info designers take a spin through the world of visualised data, from hard stats on politics and climate to daffy but no less important trends in pop music. David’s work currently merges big data, concepts, visual design and story-telling – and the odd joke.
David McCandless is the author of two best selling books: Information is Beautiful (2009) Knowledge is Beautiful (2014). Both use data-visualisation & information design to tell new kinds of stories, convey interesting ideas and bend minds.
David started his career aged 15, writing for cult video games magazines Your Sinclair, Zero and PC Zone. By 1995, his eerie talent for video games had led to him clinching that much coveted title, UK Doom Champion. He then went on to represent his country in the world finals. Unfortunately he lost, in the first round, to a 14 year old boy from New Jersey with a moustache.
In recent years, he’s been exploring the use of data visualisation and infographics to explore new directions for journalism and to discover new stories in the seas of data surrounding us. He has had pieces exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Wellcome Trust gallery in London, and at the Tate Britain.
David speaks about data, information & knowledge, creativity, design-thinking, data story-telling, the art & utility of data-visualisation telling data-driven stories, using examples from across business, tech, science, communications, politics and culture.
