How common is your birthday?

Not all birthdays are created equal… in fact, for most countries in the north temperate zone, more people are born in summer (May – August) than in winter (October – January). This heatmap allows you to check how popular your birth date is. It shows the number of people in Belgium for each specific birthday.

There are some interesting outliers: January 1st and July 1st are extra common, because people with an unknown birth data are commonly assigned these birthdays. The national holidays (May 1, July 21, August 15, November 1 and 11, December 25) are clearly visible as dips in the data. And obviously, February 29th is also not very popular!

We haven’t figured out why more people are born on the 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th and 25th of each month, but possibly this has some administrative reasons as well…

Man using a calendar for remembering an appointment

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thumbnail for video 06 - making a data visual noise-free

Making a data visual noise-free

Removing noise from a data visual is not only about taking things away such as gridlines, axes or legends. That’s just one part of it, which we could call removing physical noise. Improving the signal-to-noise ratio is often also about adding little things that help our audience better understand the visual. We are helping them by removing mental noise, or mental barriers.

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Three tips to create powerful charts in Excel

Creating charts in Excel can be a very powerful tool for making sense of complex data sets, and for visualizing them. But the default options are not always the most pretty or effective ones. Here are our top three tips to create better Excel charts.

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thumbnail for video 05 - a powerful chart has a high signal-to-noise ratio

A powerful chart has a high signal-to-noise ratio

‘Less is more’. It’s a crucial principle in most of our communication, and in data visualization in particular. Because of my background as a physicist, I prefer to talk about the ‘signal-to-noise ratio’. The message - our signal - should be amplified as much as possible, giving it all of the attention. Everything that can distract from our message - the noise - should be removed.

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thumbnail for video 04 - a powerful chart tells a story

A powerful chart tells a story

A powerful chart has a clear message. It should be short and meaningful, and obvious in the blink of an eye. If there’s only one thing our audience remembers at the end of the day, this should be it.

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Navigating the landscape of powerful charts

Once we’ve decided to create a data visual or infographic, there are a lot of questions we should ask ourselves to determine the most suitable format. These considerations could include size, readability, possible interactive functionality, and the level of detail we need.

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Kenneth Mejia's billboard in the city of Los Angeles, showing a bar chart with a breakdown of the city budget.

How powerful charts can boost your career

An American accountant managed - as the youngest ever! - to win a crucial election in Los Angeles - thanks to the power of data visualization. And you, too, can use powerful charts to boost your career!

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