Appearances

Featured

VISCOMM keynote 2025

As invited keynote speaker for the VISCOMM workshop at IEEE VIS conference, I talked about current trends in data visualization, my design approach, and how our profession is changing in the recent wave of AI tools.

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talks • Oct ’25

Truth & Beauty for the German administration

At the 11th Öffentliches Gestalten meetup on "Visualising data", hosted by CityLAB Berlin and DigitalService des Bundes, I shared more recent work for and with the German Federal government — including the Climate—Conflict—Vulnerability Index (CCVI) for the Federal Foreign Office and the official COVID-19 vaccination dashboard for the Federal Ministry of Health.

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talks • Jun ’22

Eurovis keynote 2022

As invited keynote speaker for the EUROVIS conference, I talked about the iconic power of data visualization, the role of emotions, culture, symbols and how we read "between the lines" of data visualizations.

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talks • Feb ’22

Visual Rhetorics / Data Art for Climate Action

In my keynote at DACA 2022, I presented my perspective on climate visualization — from data sculptures over dashboards for beehives to Ed Hawkins' warming stripes.

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talks • Nov ’21

Designing the official German COVID-19 vaccination dashboard

A concise, remote presentation on the design rationale and process behind the Impfdashboard — the official German COVID-19 vaccination dashboard.

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talks • Sep ’21

The dataviz mindset

This (German language) talk from the Solutions conference summarizes my thoughts on what constitutes the unique dataviz mindset. Enjoy!

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in-the-media • Mar ’26

Explore Explain S6E8 with Enrico Bertini

Together with Enrico Bertini, I appeared in a special two-part episode of Andy Kirk's Explore Explain series. We each shared five significant visualization-related works by others that have most influenced our thinking about data visualization, plus a selection from our own work that has been significant to our careers. Watch part 1 and part 2.

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in-the-media • Dec ’25

INGRAPHICS contribution

INGRAPHICS is a „magazine for visual thinkers“ — and I was kindly invited to contribute a double spread.

I created a visual overview of the long history of Elon Musk‘s not-quite-materialized predictions on autonomous cars.

The magazine is full of stunning visuals, and completely self financed. Grab a copy — it’s worth it!

texts • Jun ’25

The Process

There's a method to the madness.

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in-the-media • Mar ’25

PolicyViz Podcast Episode #278

Jon Schwabish and I chat about my work and I reflect on my journey in the field — the Data Stories podcast, my shift from bespoke data visualization projects to scalable design systems, and collaborations with organizations like the World Health Organization.

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texts • Mar ’25

Crisis? What crisis?

Why 2024 was a dead year for indie dataviz — and how we’ll do much better in 2025

talks • Feb ’25

Kiel Life Science New Year's Reception

I was invited by Kiel Life Science to speak at their New Year's Reception at the Zoological Museum Kiel, where around 75 guests gathered to gain insights into visualizing scientific data.

in-the-media • Feb ’23

Design und Künstliche Intelligenz

My work on Einstein Designer was featured in a full book chapter for the German language book "Design und Künstliche Intelligenz", covering the relationship of design and artificial intelligence.

in-the-media • Dec ’21

The Data Wranglers: Data with a Purpose

I joined Jeffrey Heer and Adam Wilson on The Data Wranglers podcast to discuss how I create a character from a dataset to give it emotional meaning. We talked about my work on the German Covid-19 vaccine dashboard, visualizing train traffic for Deutsche Bahn, and 175 years of text from Scientific American.

in-the-media • Sep ’21

The rise of the pandemic dashboard

Bloomberg features the official German COVID-19 vaccination dashboard in a feature on why every government needs a pandemic dashboard.

in-the-media • Dec ’20

HeadsOfData / d:u Podcast

German-language podcast episode on becoming an independent "Truth & Beauty Operator", the importance of data visualization in data value creation, and the relationship between data literacy and data visualization.

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in-the-media • Dec ’20

Interview on Andy Kirk's Explore Explain

It was an honour to be featured in Andy Kirk's series "Explore Explain". Together with Scientific American's art director Jen Christiansen, we tell the story how our visualization project of word trends in the rich 175 year history of the magazine came about.

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in-the-media • Nov ’20

Zukunftsfragen Interview

Goethe Institute Italy invited me to contribute to their German / Italian Zukunftsfragen" interview series.

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awards • Sep ’20

Rhythm of Food in Breda

The Rhythm of Food project was selected to be part of the Graphic Matters: Information Superpower exhibition, Sep 20 to Oct 27, 2019.

teaching • Aug ’18

Truth & Beauty for Science!

I taught a training course for data visualization for scientists in Utrecht, Netherlands, August 2018. For more information, check out this interview I did with the organizers from Graphic Hunters.

in-the-media • Aug ’18

Graphic Hunters interview

A longer-form interview with Graphic Hunters about my work and philosophy — covering what makes data visualization easy to learn but hard to master, and why "good data visualizations tell a story, but really great ones tell a thousand stories — but not all at once."

in-the-media • Jul ’18

Food & Drink Infographics

"Food & Drink Infographics" (TASCHEN, Simone Klabin, ed. Julius Wiedemann) features my Muesli Ingredient Network.

awards • Nov ’17

Information is Beautiful Awards 2017

I won Gold for Rhythm of Food and Bronze for Peak Spotting at the Information is Beautiful Awards 2017.

This marks awards number 9 and 10 from a winning streak of 6 consecutive years(!). It's an incredible honor to receive such amazing ongoing support and recognition. Huge thanks and hi-fives also to my numerous collaborators on these projects!

in-the-media • Aug ’17

Google News Lab interview on Wahl 2Q17

Isa Sonnenfeld from Google News Lab interviewed me about our visualization of Google Trends data around the German federal election — how we turned search interest into a rich, explorable portrait of the campaign, and what we learned along the way.

texts • Mar ’17

There be dragons: dataviz in the industry

Why don't we see more ambitious data visualization in corporate settings?

awards • Nov ’16

Information is Beautiful Awards 2016

I am thrilled to have been awarded three Information is Beautiful Awards 2016.

Dataviz Project Gold for Data Cuisine
Data Visualization Silver for Projekt Ukko
Special price for Outstanding Individual

exhibitions • May ’16

Project Ukko exhibitions

Project Ukko was exhibited at Future Everything, Manchester, 2016 (Multitouch installation and ambient loop) as well as Information+ exhibition, Vancouver, 2016.

texts • Jan ’16

Little boxes

Would the field of data vis benefit from a clear line between art and design?

in-the-media • Jan ’16

New culinary trend: Data Cuisine

Deutsche Welle reports on Data Cuisine, the edible approach to data visualization.

in-the-media • Jan ’16

The data visualisation artist playing with the future

Huck Magazine interviews me about my work, including Project Ukko.

exhibitions • Dec ’15

Selfiecity London

We created a special London version of the Selfiecity project for the Big Bang Data exhibition at Somerset House, London. The installation is up 03 Dec 2015 — 28 Feb 2016.

exhibitions • Dec ’15

False Positive exhibitions

awards • Dec ’15

Information is Beautiful Award 2015

exhibitions • Oct ’15

ON BROADWAY exhibited

exhibitions • Oct ’15

Stadtbilder @ Data Drift, Riga

in-the-media • Aug ’15

Landscape Architecture Frontiers

On Broadway was featured in the leading Chinese journal Landscape Architecture Frontiers.

talks • Feb ’15

FutureEverything Conference

I was speaking at FutureEverything Conference 2015 as part of the session "What now for memory and identity?".

awards • Nov ’14

Information is Beautiful Award 2014

texts • Nov ’14

A Practitioner’s Perspective on the How, What and Why of Data Visualization

From David Bihanic's "New challenges for Data Design" for Springer: a full-chapter interview with me on my work process and approach.

talks • Nov ’14

Data with a cause

I moderated a panel on visualization for policy change at VIS 2014, featuring Tariq Khokhar, Scott David, Matteo Maggiore, and Greg McInerny. We tried to shed some light on what it’s like to work with and publish data in the NGO context, and how we can improve!

in-the-media • Oct ’14

Raw Data — Infographic Designers' Sketchbooks

The design sketches for the OECD Better Life Index are featured in Best Raw Data — Infographic Designers' Sketchbooks, a great collection of design sketches from a variety of information designers.

in-the-media • Oct ’14

Best American Infographics 2014

Where the Wild Bees are is featured in Best American Infographics 2014. Thanks to Jen Christiansen and Jillian Walters for the great collaboration!

exhibitions • Sep ’14

Places and Spaces 2014

talks • Sep ’14

Keynote: Search is Over

in-the-media • Aug ’14

NOVUM feature

Thanks to premiere graphic design magazine NOVUM for featuring me and my work!

in-the-media • Jul ’14

These Weird Meals Are Actually Clever Data Visualizations

WIRED covers Data Cuisine, our project using food as a medium for data expression.

exhibitions • Jun ’14

Selfie São Paulo

talks • Jun ’14

Keynote at Gurus of BI

I presented some of my the off-the-beaten-track work at Gurus of BI 2014, a leading conference in Business Intelligence.

teaching • Mar ’14

Truth & Beauty at resonate

Together with Dominikus Baur, I taught a 3-day workshop on data visualization at resonate.

texts • Mar ’14

Worlds, not stories

The greatest potential for data visualization: to provide us with new kinds of "glasses" to see the world.

awards • Mar ’14

Malofiej 2014

The Wahlland project won a bronze medal at the prestigious Malofiej awards.

in-the-media • Oct ’13

La Lettura

in-the-media • Jul ’13

"The city is alive" — interview with Sandra Rendgen

Sandra Rendgen interviewed me about my work at the intersection of data visualization and urban data — how I came to the field with a background in cognitive science and interface design, and my efforts to create a comprehensible visual vocabulary for mapping complex data.