Data Storytelling Comics

As I get ready to deliver my live data storytelling workshop (hint, hint), I decided to develop a series of comics. My goal over the next week is to create at least 20 (this post will grow as I go). Here’s what I have so far!

If you have any data storytelling inspiration for me or if any of these comics hit home, let me know in the comments!

Data Story Yelling

This one was inspired by a typo

Data Dump

What comes to mind when I say the words data storytelling?

“Making program evaluation plans and results available to people in ways that rivet them or, barring that, draw them into reflection without just bombarding them with nice graphs and pithy summaries.”

Inspired by a follower of this blog

Not our story

How do you think learning more about data storytelling will help you in your career?

“As the person who is behind the scenes on evaluation design, data collection, and management, I feel a great responsibility to do storytelling well because of how poorly things can transpire when a story is misleading or flat out biased.”

Another inspired by a follower of this blog

Shouting versus Storytelling

“Sometimes it seems like the push for more charts and storytelling is just saying the same things, louder. Or in bigger text on a slide.

Telling compelling data stories includes writing great headlines (often in big, readable text on slides!), but it also means thinking more critically around how you organize the information you’re presenting.”

Inspired by Amanda Makulec (who was responding to another of my data storytelling comics)

BANs (Big A** Numbers) and the Count

Sticking a bunch of big numbers at the top of an infographic or dashboard is like delivering the punchline of a joke without the setup.

Bedtime Data Storytelling

Does your data reporting style help with sleeplessness? Is that intentional?

Infographic Story Time

I was just thinking about how lame a library story time would be if you took away the people.

More to come (stay tuned)…

Now that you’ve seen the comics, join me for the workshop

You’ll learn:

• Fundamental storytelling concepts, considerations, and tools.
• A set of four different frameworks you can use to develop engaging data stories.
• How to choose the right storytelling product to deliver your data story.
• Strategies for illustrating your data stories.

Live May 28 & May 30 (10AM to 1130AM eastern each day)