Category Archives: Data Visualization

Top Phrases of 2025 vibed into a contextualized cloud.

Posted on April 12, 2026 by richardbrath

How can we visualize contemporary phrases? Contemporary art suggests possibilities, but there’s a need for additional context. With AI, I find phrases, do semantic grouping, create example sentences, and encode connotative colors, into a composition. This little AI-assisted design project aid reconsideration of design rules regarding layout and color. Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, LLM, narrative visualization, Readability, Text Skimming, Text Visualization | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Visualizing with LLMs: challenging data visualizations

Posted on March 9, 2026 by richardbrath

LLM’s help me animate the text in ways that it perhaps should not be animated. Why? It’s about understanding breadth of design possibilities. Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, Design Space, Font Visualization, Kinetic Typography, LLM, Text Visualization, Variable Fonts | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Alice text gets wavy

Posted on February 21, 2026 by richardbrath

After failing to create an effective scrolling news ticker, the author explores kinetic typography’s potential for data visualization. “Dreamy Alice,” is an interactive version of Alice in Wonderland where text movement semantically encodes plot emotions, demonstrating how animation can dynamically enhance large-scale reading. Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, Kinetic Typography, LLM, Text Visualization | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Text slopes and rings

Posted on January 18, 2026 by richardbrath

A Washington Post analysis of earnings calls visualizes rising CEO concerns by sloping keyword changes in context. For another “text on paths” approach, I explore placing quotations on circular rings, enabled by rapid LLM-assisted visualization design. Continue reading →

Posted in Annotation, Data Visualization, Design Space, LLM, Microtext, Readability, Text Visualization | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Free movies (and LLM-aided viz design)

Posted on January 3, 2026 by richardbrath

An LLM-driven exploration of visualizing 800 National Film Registry movies. After failed genre and text-embedding approaches, the author uses LLMs to generate nuanced attributes, cluster films, and design an interactive visualization that reveals meaningful similarities without standard categories, reflecting on strengths and limits of “Team LLM” design iteration. Continue reading →

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Can seg∙men∙ting words aid reading?

Posted on December 4, 2025 by richardbrath

A new study finds that visual tweaks meant to make English easier to read actually slow readers down. Yet the challenge remains: can typography guide beginners through English’s messy spelling? This post explores why interventions fail, what might still work, and why thoughtful design—and persistence—are essential to innovation. Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, Legibility, Readability, Text Skimming, Text Visualization | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

You’ve made the wrong connection

Posted on November 16, 2025 by richardbrath

Force-directed graphs present challenges such as long, salient edges and ambiguous connections, which can confuse viewers. How could this be improved? Three design ideas are constructed via LLM, including edge routing with arcs, edge bundling with color differentiation, and gradient tips to lessen the prominence of long connections and clarify endpoints. New techniques such as these could aid graph visualization to enhance perceptual clarity. Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, Graph Visualization, LLM | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sidekicks, visualization storytelling and swaying opinion

Posted on October 16, 2025 by richardbrath

Sidekicks can helpfully explain things and be annoying. Can sidekicks be used to help narrative visualizations, for example, helping provide multiple perspectives and enhance engagement? Maybe. Or maybe force linear readings and mislead through content and style. LLMs can help, maybe. Awareness of these potential pitfalls is necessary for critical analysis of data narratives. Continue reading →

Posted in Critique, Data Visualization, LLM, narrative visualization | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Fitting text into tables: it’s time for AI-gen Tacos

Posted on October 4, 2025 by richardbrath

Trouble fitting text into tables? LLM Taco visualizations can help. Text-Tacos are Textual TAble CartOgrams that bend table gridlines so that cells can show more text. These table cartograms can be generated with AI, although there are challenges describing the layout algorithm to the LLM. Text-Tacos can benefit qualitative data visualization, such as the analysis of customer reviews from surveys. Continue reading →

Posted in Data Visualization, Design Space, LLM, Text Skimming, Text Visualization, Thematic Map | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Texture and Pattern in Data Visualization

Posted on September 6, 2025 by richardbrath

The use of pattern in data visualization is under explored. A recent preprint by He et al. presents a design system based on lattices, glyphs and visual attributes. An incredibly wide range of patterns are possible, such as examples of radial patterns, non-linear lattices, and text-based patterns.
Continue reading →

Posted in 3D visualization, Data Visualization, Font Visualization, Pattern, texture | Tagged , , | 2 Comments