Ugly Real Economic Growth Chart from Singapore Statistics.
Singapore Statistics have the most amazing numbers on Singapore. Anything on our country’s GDP to how many handphones we have on average can be found. But the folks from SingStats seriously need to improve their charts.
Take a look here (http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/charts/econ.html#econA)
I could hardly make any sense out of these charts. They seems to be just thrown together with out any theme or purpose. After all the work of collecting the data, if you can’t present data in a useful manner, it’s simply a waste of efforts.
I took up the challenge to clean up this miserable chart using Excel, and try to show that beautiful charts can be useful to convery data in a clearer manner.
The improvements I made:
1. The distinct shape of our total economy is much clearer as an area chart.
2. The Manufacturing and Financial sectors are reduced to scatter chart with drop lines. The trends can still be discerned yet is less noisy compared to the original version.
A 10 year Balance Sheet Dashboard
Imagine you are the new CFO. You took over the position in the new firm and you want to look at the firm’s latest balance sheet.
You’ll probably want to see the firm’s 10 year balance sheet history. It will be tough to make sense of things. What if you have a balance sheet dashboard instead? It contains the latest information complete with a 10 year history of each balance sheet line item! That’s truly a powerful tool in the hands of a competent accountant!
A gallery of Beautiful Charts for Excel part 4
I saw these couple of charts from the Standard Chartered Bank website.
Things I like about it:
- Fresh colour scheme. Blues and greens work well together.
- Bold titles that explain the intentions of each chart.
- Each chart has an Increase/Decrease call out to emphasize the conclusion from the data trend.
- Overall it’s a format that is pleasing to the eyes and easy to understand. Great job!
I hate pie charts for many reasons. But in this case, this particular pie tastes pretty good for the following reasons:
- It looks pretty. Very nice color scheme . The green & blue hues fits nicely like Lego blocks.
- Sorted and group slices with the biggest slices at the bottom. I can easily make out which slices are bigger.
- I don’t feel confused. This pie chart uses only 6 slices which I can mentally organize in my head.
- Overall clarity is well maintained with the skillful use of color, slice size sorting and small number of slices.
A gallery of Beautiful Charts for Excel part 3
The New York Times has the best illustrated charts I have ever seen. They are visually clear, easy to understand with good copy writing to explain the message behind a story. Note the use of blues and orange shades to give visual contrasts.
A gallery of Beautiful Charts for Excel part 2
I have scoured the web and magazines for beautiful charts designs that we can use in our Excel reports. This will be part of a gallery I am creating. Do visit this blog for regular updates.
Intelligent chart layout makes it look good.
I love the use of coloured bands to give a sense of passing time.
3 simple red bands gave this mess of numbers and charts structure.!
A gallery of Beautiful Charts for Excel part 1
I have scoured the web and magazines for beautiful charts designs that we can use in our Excel reports. This will be part of a gallery I am creating. Do visit this blog for regular updates.
Black backgrounds can work with charts!
Good use of callouts to highlight a message.
Note the use of consistent colours.
Black, white, red and blue. What drama!
