This made a viral firestorm when it was published by Hesham Eissa and Lindsey Poulter during the pandemic. A beautiful data story about something close to every sugar monsters heart – ice cream.
But what you might not know? Hesham and Lindsey, used this story as a chance to teach themselves D3.JS (with no coding experience) and it took 6 months. January – March 2020 doing tutorials and reading books, April and May experimenting with different charts (1-3 hours a day “given that we were in the middle of peak lockdown in a global pandemic, we had a lot of time to kill”), and in June they put all their learnings together to create this beautiful data-viz.
My favourite part? Not the interactive circular dendogram at the bottom (new word for you), but the great use of the chord diagram under “The 79 Additions of Ben & Jerry’s”. Chord diagrams often overcomplicate a data representation, but here it simplifies the story. You instantly get it, and don’t need to stare at it like a confused dog for 2 minutes until it clicks.
Check the story out. And try to not instantly run to the store to load up on autumnal ice cream.