2026-04-21 08:00:35
I’m very happy to announce details of a new public training course: A two-day classroom-based ‘Masterclass in Data Visualisation‘ will take place in London on 7-8 July 2026.
This is an essential non-technical course for anyone seeking to develop a sophisticated capability in the modern craft of data visualisation.
You can read more information about my training courses, which have been running since November 2011. Further public training events, virtual and classroom, will be arranged in response to demand and schedule availability. If your organisation would be interested in exploring options to arrange a training privately for your colleagues, just get in touch.
What is this training about?
This Masterclass training course provides attendees with a sophisticated understanding of how to communicate data visually in the most impactive way. Delivered over two full-day sessions this training de-constructs this complex, multi-disciplinary craft into an organised sequence of topics towards giving attendees a thorough appreciation of how to navigate through the many creative, editorial, and analytical options that exist.
In contrast to the shorter ‘Fundamentals of Data Visualisation’ training, also offered by Andy Kirk, this course has more breadth and more detail, including additional topics not covered in the shorter course and with more time to allow for opportunities to practice the learning on exercise activities.
Who is this training for?
This training is relevant to anyone who has a role in or undertakes duties involving the analysis, presentation, and communication of data. Whether your work is primarily concerned with building dashboards, creating infographics, constructing data stories, or producing charts for reports, its all part of the same world. This popular course will enlighten you with new ideas and approaches for visualising data in the most contextually-reasoned way.
Please note this is not technical training: you will not receive teaching in the form of instruction based tutorials for how to make charts in specific tools. However, you will learn more about the profile of common tools that are being used in the field today, about the opportunities where collaborating with AI capabilities can be potentially useful, and you will be pointed towards many useful online references to help you develop your technical skills to apply what you learn in the course.
For more information about the course contents and objectives visit the training page where you will also find a selection of testimonials from previous attendees.
Who is this training delivered by?
Andy Kirk is an independent data visualisation expert from the UK and now based in Ireland. He is one of the most in-demand, experienced, and prolific educators in the field, having delivered nearly 450 public and private training courses since becoming a freelance professional in 2010. Visit Andy’s website, visualisingdata.com, to learn more about his training experiences as well as his other work in visualisation design, consultancy, lecturing, and book authoring.
Where will this training be held?
This course will be held at Bersey Warehouse, a premise on the London campus of Canva, located at 293 Old Street on the corner with Coronet Street in the Hoxton area (postcode: EC1V 9LA). This is about 6-8 minutes walk from Old Street underground station. Specific arrival instructions will be provided to all attendees priort to the course. Please note lunch is NOT provided but there hot/cold drinks and snack refreshments will be available throughout the day. The venue is closely located to many cafes and sandwich shop options.
Timings
On both days this training commences at 9:30am and finishes around 4:30pm. Arrival will be open from 9am onwards. There will be breaks during all morning and afternoon sessions, and a lunch break each day of around 60 minutes.
Technology
Attendees are requested to bring a laptop to use as a workspace for the session. The event is not technical in nature but this will enable you to access the course materials and exercise files referred to during the sessions. You will not require any specialist software beyond Excel/Sheets, a pdf reader, and a browser. Across a day you should expect to need around 3 hours of charge. Power access will be provided for charging devices.
The online whiteboard platform, Miro, will be used extensively during the course to collate and share exercise activities. More details will be provided in the class. Other than using a browser and a pdf reader, no additional tools will be necessary to have access to or skills with for this non-technical course.
Training materials will be issued digitally, including the teaching slides, exercise files and further useful resources, and delegates will receive instructions and information about this prior to the course resources. OneDrive, as a first preference, or WeTransfer, as an alternative, will be the typical methods used for material sharing.
Registration
Registration can be made online using the built-in Eventbrite payment processing system. Click on ‘Get Tickets’, choose the relevant ticket option, and then follow the instructions to complete the delegate registration and payment details.
If you would prefer to register offline and arrange payment via an invoice process for electronic transfer just email [email protected] to reserve your place and progress your registration.
Pricing: Fees, VAT charges, and Discounts!
The standard registration pricing for this course is £700+VAT per person. The total cost will depend on any additional processing fees, your VAT exemption status, and the application of potential discounts.
VAT charges are relevant to the following types of buyer:
VAT charges are exempt for the following types of buyer:
There are FOUR ways of joining this course at a reduced price…
(1) Subscribers to Andy Kirk’s Visualising Data Newsletter will find a promo code for a 10% discount mentioned in each monthly issue.
(2) Do you own a copy of the ‘Data Visualisation: A Handbook for Data Driven Design‘ book (any edition)? If you do there is a 10% discount available when using the promo code which is the full name of the final chart type in the gallery of methods presented in the book’s sixth chapter. The same final ‘chart’ is listed is all editions of the book. Removing the space, the code should be 7 characters in length.
To apply this discount, when you get to the training registration checkout, in the ‘Promo code’ box enter the code (not case sensitive) and this will reduce the price by 10%.
(3) Eventbrite charges a non-refundable processing fee of ~8% which applies to all registration types. To avoid incurring these additional charges you may instead choose to register offline and arrange payment via an invoice process for electronic transfer. If you/your organisation prefer this method please just email [email protected] to reserve your place and progress your registration.
(4) For some people interested in attending such training, finances can be a barrier. Whether it is due to the relative cost of living in your region or specific personal circumstances, it is entirely appreciated that financial obstacles will exist for some. As a commitment to widening access to these training courses, at least 2 places will be made available on this course, no questions asked, at a discounted ‘pay what you can afford’ basis.
If you would benefit from and feel you would qualify to take one of these available places please email [email protected] to make the necessary arrangements for your registration (ie. this may entail being issued with a discount code to apply to a standard registration procedure).
Cancellations and changes policy
Full refunds (less the non-refundable Eventbrite processing fees ~8%) are offered for any delegate cancellations made up to 7 days before the course start date. Please email [email protected] if this situation arises.
Cancellations made during the 7 days prior to the course starting will be offered a 50% refund (less processing fees), as it becomes much harder to fill a space vacated with such short notice.
Registrations can be switched to a different attendee. Please email [email protected] if this situation arises.
In the rare event the course itself has to be cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances all attendees will be offered a choice of a full refund (excluding processing fees) OR the opportunity to attend an alternative training course in the future. Refunds will be limited to registration costs alone, Visualising Data Ltd is not liable for any other costs incurred.
The post New Course: ‘Masterclass in Data Visualisation’ (London, July 2026) appeared first on Data Viz Excellence, Everywhere.
2026-04-17 15:53:13
My March newsletter, issue number 23 that was sent out to subscribers a couple of weeks ago, is now open for all to read.
You can also access this issue, as well as visit the full catalogue of previous issues, via the Newsletter page.
If you’re not already a subscriber, its time to change that! To receive this free monthly newsletter straight into your inbox you can sign up here or visit the Newsletter page to get a bit more background information and instructions.
Thank you as always to everyone who subscribes, reads, shares, visits and responds to this newsletter. But above all thank you to all the people doing ace work that I’m able to curate and share through these issues.
The post The March 2026 newsletter is now open to all appeared first on Data Viz Excellence, Everywhere.
2026-04-10 03:46:26
England’s Cure To Crazy Driving…Kinda
Okay, so I recently did a driver’s safety course for speeding.
Wait, wait, wait… it wasn’t that bad.
I was going down a hill on a 30, and at the bottom it switched to a 20. I’d never driven on that road before, and it took me a second to adjust. Personally? I think it was fine. But hey… the DVSA does indeed have bills to pay.
Anyway, I’m sitting there on the course, slightly humbled, slightly annoyed… and I learn something I had genuinely never heard before.
Apparently… the motorway is watching you.
Not in a conspiratorial way.
In a data way.
There’s something called a smart motorway. And once you see it, you realise it’s everywhere in the UK. It’s the reason you’ll be cruising at 70… and suddenly the signs tell you to go 50… then 40… and you’re sitting there thinking:
“There’s literally nothing here… why am I slowing down?”
So let’s talk about what’s actually going on.
Data In The Wild
Welcome back to another edition of Data in the Wild the series where we investigate how data is quietly collected, processed, and used to shape the world around us.
Today’s conversation:
The motorway that thinks ahead of you.
What Is A Smart Motorway??
At it’s simplisest, a smart motorway is just a motorway that uses real-time data to manage traffic.
English roads, for all you non-UK drivers are pretty small. They were originally built for horses and carrgiages after all, so rather than building new lanes (which is expensive, slow, and disruptive), this system tries to optimise the road we already have.
So rather than reacting to traffic…
it tries to predict and shape it.
According to the BBC, as of April 2024 there were 396 miles of smart motorways in England:
Forgive the use of a pie chart it just felt like it must be done
So…Why Does It Tell You To Slow Down When Nothing’s There?
This is where it gets interesting.
Under the road (and around it), there are sensors constantly collecting data:
All of that feeds into a system called
MIDAS (Motorway Incident Detection and Automatic Signalling).
Truly a golden opportunities to use a good acronym. Here’s what the MIDAS actually does:
The Red X, for the slightly seasoned readers out there, may make you think of a certain teen titan, but for the rest of us normal people, it can be a bit confusing! Why? Because it looks like the lane is not usable, which is only half the story! Rather, the motorway has picked up that there is an accident, an obstacle, or something that makes it not the best place to be, so kindly get out of the lane! Here is what’s happening:
There are even cameras that will fine you if you ignore it.
Because on some smart motorways…there’s no hard shoulder anymore.
It does occur to me as I write this, there are a lot of terms here where if you don’t drive or don’t drive in the UK, may make not sense what so ever, but the hard should is that part of the road the arrow is pointing to in the picture, where cars tend to go when the going gets tuff and your vehicle stops going…it’s gone!
Some smart motorways use something called “all lane running”, where the hard shoulder is permanently turned into a live lane.
Which is great for:
But raises a very fair question:
Where do you go if you break down?
Enter: Emergency Refuge Areas
Instead of a continuous hard shoulder, you get designated pull-in zones called Emergency Refuge Areas (ERAs).
They’re:
The idea is If something goes wrong, you aim for one of these
But…That gap between them? That’s where a lot of the debate comes in.
The Debate
Yes, there is one! It’s why a good chunk of us get up in the morning! Because on paper, smart motorways may sound great!
You have:
But in reality, alot of people are not completely sold. Organisations like the RAC have raised concerts that around how quickly stopped vehicles are detected and the distance between the refugee areas. Amongst other things, one of the biggest concerns is the reliability of data & tech to handle safety issues in a predictable way, for a species of people who are not exactly known for their predictability (I have been on a few Reddit threads about this, it’s both very scary and incredibly entertaining).
It’s as a result of this that the UK government has actually cancelled plans for new smart motorways, though the existing ones are very much in use.
The Bottom Line
As we are not here to talk about motorway hijinks and government policy, we are here to talk about how data is used and influences our everyday lives. And this is one of the examples where, perhaps there is still a big question mark. Because we’ve built a system powered by data…but we are still figuring out if we actually trust it.
Next time you’re driving and the speed drops from 70 to 50 for no obvious reason…
Just remember:
It’s not random.
It’s not broken.
It’s a system, quietly watching patterns…
trying to stop a problem before you ever see it.
And whether you trust it or not…
That’s data in the wild.
See you next time.
Smart motorways are quietly shaping how we drive. That sudden drop from 70 to 50? It’s not random. Sensors and systems are predicting traffic before it happens, slowing everyone down to prevent jams. It’s data controlling the road in real time… the question is, do we actually trust it?
In this edition of Data in the Wild, I explore what it really means to “share your location.” From GPS and Wi-Fi to ship tracking and TfL demand modelling, this piece unpacks how geolocation works, where it shows up in everyday life, and what we can build when movement becomes data.
Fireworks don’t just light up the sky they’re shaped by data. From wind modelling to sound limits, invisible thresholds decide what counts as “safe fun.” This Data in the Wild piece explores how decibels, maths, and regulation quietly shape one of our most beloved celebrations.
The post Data in the wild #17: Smart motorways appeared first on Data Viz Excellence, Everywhere.
2026-03-30 23:59:45
This is the second of a special two-part episode featuring my esteemed guests, Moritz Stefaner, ‘Truth & Beauty Operator’ based in Germany, and Enrico Bertini, Associate Professor, Data Visualization Researcher and Educator at Northeastern University in the USA.
The conversations explored Moritz and Enrico’s respective selections of FIVE significant visualisation-related works, produced by other people, that have most influentially shaped their thinking about data visualisation. They then each offer a further +1 selection from their own body of work that they felt had had most significance on their career story.
You can watch this episode using the embedded player below or over on the dedicated Explore Explain Youtube channel, where you’ll find all the other video-based episodes and curated playlists.
The post Explore Explain S6E8 – Moritz Stefaner & Enrico Bertini (Part 2) appeared first on Data Viz Excellence, Everywhere.
2026-03-26 22:58:05
Where Is Your Data Viz Community?
If you’re serious about data visualisation, whether as a designer, developer, journalist, researcher, or creative technologist, conferences are where the field really comes alive.
They’re where new tools are launched.
Where research meets storytelling.
Where people who “get it” – or want to “get it” – gather in one place.
Its where you can find, meet and then hang out with your own tribe, or those adjacent to you.
Below is a curated list of major data viz and adjacent events taking place in 2026, ranging from academic heavyweights to creative festivals, mapping conferences to product-led design summits.
Presenting Your DataViz Events
For those who want a quick snapshot, scroll no further! Here is a table of events in monthly order and with indicative prices (in GBP):
| Name | Link | Location | Cost | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smashing Conference | https://smashingconf.com/ | Amsterdam, Belgium, Germany | £700–£1,100 | Apr-26 |
| Canva Create | https://www.canva.com/canva-create/ | Los Angeles, USA | £295 | Apr-26 |
| Tableau Conference 2026 | https://www.salesforce.com/tableau-conference/ | San Diego, USA | £1,199 - £1,349 | May-26 |
| Outlier Conference | https://www.outlierconf.com/ | Online | £400–£700 | Jun-26 |
| UX London | https://uxlondon.com/ | London, UK | £600–£1,000 | Jun-26 |
| Figma Config | https://config.figma.com/ | San Francisco / Online | £0–£500 | Jun-26 |
| EuroVis | https://eurovis.org.uk/ | Nottingham, UK | £350–£700 | Jun-26 |
| &MOVE (Graphic Hunters) | https://graphichuntersshow.nl/ | Netherlands | £363 | Jun-26 |
| Esri User Conference | https://www.esri.com/en-us/about/events/uc | San Diego, USA | £1,200–£1,700 | Jul-26 |
| Wikimania | https://wikimania.org/ | Paris | £200–£500 | Jul-26 |
| Viz Chitra | https://vizchitra.com/ | Bangalore, India | £27+ | Jul-26 |
| Visualizing Complexity | https://vis.csh.ac.at/vis-workshop-2026/ | Vienna | £346 | Jul-26 |
| State of the Map | https://stateofthemap.org/ | Paris/ Online | £200–£450 | Aug-26 |
| SIGGRAPH | https://www.siggraph.org/ | LA, USA | £700–£1,200 | Aug-26 |
| FOSS4G (Free & Open Source GIS) | https://foss4g.org/ | Global | £300–£600 | Aug–26 |
| British Cartographic Society Annual Conference | https://www.cartography.org.uk/events | Edinburgh, Scotland | £250–£500 | Sep-26 |
| MozFest (Mozilla Festival) | https://www.mozillafestival.org/ | Barcelona | £0–£300 | Oct-26 |
| Information Design Conference | TBC | Netherlands | TBC | Oct-26 |
| Visualising Climate 2026 | https://climate.copernicus.eu/visualising-climate-2026 | Bologna, Italy | £299 | Nov-26 |
| IEEE VIS | https://ieeevis.org/ | Boston, USA | £500–£900 | Nov-26 |
Let’s Jump into this!
To be clear, this is not an exhaustive list of all relevant events to data visualisation. Partly because we’ve already missed a few, but also because there are far too many events happening globally to capture them all. But these are the ones on our radar!
We categorised the events into types:
CORE DATA VISUALISATION CONFERENCES
Outlier Conference 2026
EuroViz 2026
IEEE Viz 2026
Viz Chitra 2026
Visualizing Complexity 2026
Information Design Conference 2026
MAPPING, GIS & CARTOGRAPHY
State of the Map 2026
FOSS4G 2026
Esri User Conference 2026
British Cartographic Society Conference 2026
Journalism, Open Knowledge & Civic tech Conferences
Wikimania 2026
MozFest 2026
Design & Product Conferences
Figma Config 2026
UX London
Smashing Conference
SIGGRAPH 2026
CLIMATE & DATA Conferences
Visualising Climate 2026
TOOL SPECIFIC CONFERENCEs
Canva Create 2026
Tableau Conference 2026
Final Thoughts
If you made it to the end, then hats off to you!
This list is not exhaustive by any means but in creating this list one thing is abudently clear. Data visualisation is not limited by industry, it acts as a crossroads:
Where you go depends on where you want your practice to grow.
If you’re building tools → go technical.
If you’re telling stories → go narrative.
If you’re building community → go hybrid.
If you’re pushing the craft → go where the experiments are.
And if you’re serious about the future of data storytelling in 2026…
Start booking early.
The post Data Visualisation Events to Look Out for in 2026 appeared first on Data Viz Excellence, Everywhere.
2026-03-20 22:19:18
This is the first of a special two-part episode featuring my esteemed guests, Moritz Stefaner, ‘Truth & Beauty Operator’ based in Germany, and Enrico Bertini, Associate Professor, Data Visualization Researcher and Educator at Northeastern University in the USA.
The conversations explored Moritz and Enrico’s respective selections of FIVE significant visualisation-related works, produced by other people, that have most influentially shaped their thinking about data visualisation. They then each offer a further +1 selection from their own body of work that they felt had had most significance on their career story.
In this first-part episode we covered Moritz’s selections as follows:
You can watch this episode using the embedded player below or over on the dedicated Explore Explain Youtube channel, where you’ll find all the other video-based episodes and curated playlists.
To listen directly, visit this link or use the embedded podcast player below. The audio podcast is published across all common platforms (such as Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music etc.), so you will find this series listed in their respective directories by searching for ‘Explore Explain’ or by manually entering – or copying/pasting – this url to your subscriptions – https://feed.pod.co/exploreexplain.
The post Explore Explain S6E7 – Moritz Stefaner & Enrico Bertini (Part 1) appeared first on Data Viz Excellence, Everywhere.
