A point of view, not a chart
Dwell → claim → sketch → lead → open
A data story is a point of view drawn so a stranger can feel it. The number already had a life in it: a person, a place, a decision. The work is to spend time until that life is nameable, then to say one sentence, then to draw a mark that belongs to that sentence. Giorgia Lupi calls this data humanism. Data is a language. It is taken, not given. It is imperfect. The picture should admit that.
Alberto Cairo’s warning belongs on the same card. “Story” is not a licence to omit the inconvenient window, start the axis where the drama starts, or glue a beginning, middle, and end onto a picture that argues by where the marks sit. Truthful, then functional, then beautiful, then insightful, then enlightening. Beauty is the invitation. It comes after honesty, or it is a trick.
Chart type is a lane. A bar is the honest lyric when the sentence is simply “this is larger.” A custom mark is earned when the standard chart cannot carry the life. Grain and the semantic model stay on the Analytics card. Cutover stays on Delivery. Essays stay prose.
DWELLUntil a life is nameable in the fileCLAIMOne sentence. If it needs “and,” it is two picturesSKETCHA mark for that sentence, before the libraryLEADThe eye’s first stop, and the turnOPENThe doubt stays in the pictureProblem → use → example
| If the real problem is… | Use | Example case |
|---|---|---|
| The file is a crowd and nobody is in it | Dwell until a life is nameable | Dear Data: a week of ordinary life as a hand-drawn postcard. The self is not a dashboard |
| You can filter everything and say nothing | One sentence, then the picture | The big idea is a sentence you can say without the chart. If it needs “and,” draw two pictures |
| The library chose the form | Sketch before you encode | Lupi starts on paper. A custom mark is for a life a bar cannot carry. A bar stays when “larger” is the whole poem |
| Sixteen menus and no way in | Lead, then let go | Segel and Heer: an author-driven opening, then a reader-driven wander. The martini glass. Not a control panel |
| The picture is correct and nobody stays | Beauty after truth | Cairo: truthful, functional, beautiful, insightful, enlightening. Beauty invites. It does not start the axis where the drama starts |
| A plot forced onto a map | Some pictures argue by placement | Snow’s cholera map has no three acts. The pump is the argument. Not every true picture is a story |
| The doubt is in a footnote | Draw the imperfection | Missing, approximate, situated. The flaw is part of the language. A 6-point caveat is a refusal to draw |
| Every series, so you cannot be wrong | Layer, and leave a door | Embrace complexity is a main construct plus the minor tales. A dump is not a layer. Getting lost is a gift only after the way in |
| A clever mark that hides the comparison | The kinder form | When the claim is a comparison, the FT visual vocabulary is the art. Novelty that makes “larger” harder is vanity |
The art, in order: dwell until someone is in the file → one sentence → a sketch that is not a screenshot → the eye’s path → the doubt left visible. If the grain is the problem, use the Analytics card. If the release is the problem, use the Delivery card.
Tool picker
What has to be written down
Ladder + gates
- Dwell until a life is nameable
- One sentence, said aloud
- A sketch that is not a chart-library screenshot
- The eye’s first stop, and the turn
- The doubt left in the picture
- Analytics if the grain is wrong — Delivery if the release is the job
Anti-patterns
- A chart gallery titled “story”
- A hero’s journey glued onto a distribution
- A custom metaphor that makes “larger” harder to see
- Sixteen filters and no sentence
- Beauty that moves the axis to where the drama starts
- A footnote doing the work of the drawing
- An essay turned into a scroll animation — essays stay prose
- Calling the grain a story — that is the Analytics card