Knowledge Base – Volume 2
130+ hand-picked open resources across 12 categories: datasets, tools, readings, and communities for data artists, researchers, and practitioners.
A curated directory of open resources for practitioners of data sonification and visualisation.
ALL CATEGORIES
Accessibility (6)
Articles (11)
Courses, workshops (4)
Datasets (17)
Data sonification (7)
Tools (13)
Online Blogs (15)
Books, magazines (26)
Events (8)
Newsletters (9)
Platforms (8)
Videos, talks, keynotes (14)
This directory grows
with the book.
Pre-order readers of Absent Data receive early access to this directory.
Something missing?
If you have recently launched a new tool, book, or blog about data visualisation and would like to add it to this list, fill the form below with the name of your resource and its link.
hello@tizianaalocci.com
This directory grows
with the book.
Pre-order readers of Absent Data receive early access to this directory.
ACCESSIBILITY
WebAIM
Web accessibility in mind
The A11y Project
Community-driven accessibility checklist
Viz Palette
Colour palette optimiser for data visualisation
Sim Daltonism
Colour-blindness simulator
Colour Contrast Analyser
Colour-contrast checker
Color Brewer
Colour palette maker
ARTICLES
The Rise of the Researcher-Artist
Ken Krantz (2025)
Noise pollution map shows worst affected areas in London
Harrison Jones (2022)
Yuko Mohri: Transforming Plant Fruit Decay into Melody and Meaning
Japan, Venice Art Biennale (2024)
Sean Minhui Tashi Chua on Polar Data and Creative Expression
Blind news audiences are being left behind in the data visualisation revolution: here's how we fix that
Johny Cassidy (2023)
The sound of a sunset
MIT's Digital Humanities Lab
Button pushers: the artists making music from mushrooms
N. L. Piñeda (2022)
Beyond heatmaps: Data visualisation for a warming planet
Sonification: turning the yield curve into music
COURSES, WORKSHOPS
Visualise Data in TouchDesigner
Online course, some experience required, run by Tiziana Alocci via NECESSITY.INK
From Data to Sound: Data Sonification Masterclass
Online course, some experience required, run by Tiziana Alocci via NECESSITY.INK
Introduction to Data Visualisation
Online course, beginners-friendly run by Tiziana Alocci via NECESSITY.INK
Intro to TouchDesigner
Online course, beginners-friendly, run by Tiziana Alocci via NECESSITY.INK
DATASETS
Our World in Data
Free, open access data on global issues
Kaggle Datasets
Community-shared machine learning datasets
Google Dataset
SearchSearch engine for open datasets
UN Data
United Nations statistical databases
World Bank
Open DataGlobal development indicators
Data.gov
US government open data portal
Eurostat
European Union statistical data
NASA Earthdata
Earth science datasets from NASA
NOAA Climate Data
Climate and weather records
Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Open biodiversity occurrence data
Humanitarian Data Exchange
Open data for humanitarian crises
London Data Store
Open data about London
Office of National Statistics (ONS)
ProPublica Data Store
Census Bureau
World Health Organization (WHO)
Nasa Open Portal
DATA SONIFICATION
Data Sonyfier
Browser-bases sonification tool
TwoTone
Browser-bases sonification tool
Data Sonification Archive
Collections of data sonifications
Sonic Tides Sonification
Noise pollution made visible
The Sound of Visa Inequality
Visa rejection rates turned into a melody
DATASONICA
Turning a building into an orchestra (environmental data sonification)
NASA Sonification Hub
Astronomical data as sound
TOOLS
Flourish
No-code data visualisation and storytelling
Datawrapper
Charts and maps for journalists and researchers
Observable
Collaborative data notebook environment
RAWGraphs
Open-source data visualisation framework
Gephi
Network and graph visualisation tool
QGIS
Free and open-source geographic information system
Palladio
Humanities data visualisation from Stanford
D3.js
JavaScript library for bespoke visualisations
Vega-Lite
High-level grammar for interactive graphics
Chart.js
Simple yet flexible JavaScript charts
TouchDesigner
Audiovisual tool for realtime visual
Flow Fields by Tyler Hobbs
Voyant
ONLINE BLOGS
Flowing Data
Nathan Yau on data visualisation and statistics
Nightingale, DVS
Journal of the Data Visualisation Society
The Functional Art
Alberto Cairo on visualisation and infographics
Visualising Data
Andy Kirk on best practices in dataviz
Information is Beautiful
David McCandless's celebrated data design studio
Storytelling with Data
Cole Nussbaumer-Knaflic on clear communication
Eager Eyes
Robert Kosara on visualisation research
Multiple Views
Visualisation research made accessible
The Pudding
Information is beautiful
Storybench
Creative Applications
Data Visualisation with Textiles
Activation Atlas
The People's Graphic Design Archive
BOOKS, magazines
Absent Data — Tiziana Alocci
A book exploring absent and invisible data
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information — Tufte
The seminal text on data graphics
The Functional Art — Alberto Cairo
Introduction to information visualisation
Data Visualisation — Andy Kirk
A handbook for data driven design
Storytelling with Data — Cole Knaflic
A data visualisation guide for business professionals
Dear Data — Lupi & Posavec
Hand-drawn data postcards exchanged across the Atlantic
How Charts Lie — Alberto Cairo
Getting smarter about visual information
The Truthful Art — Alberto Cairo
Data, charts, and statistical thinking
W.E.B. Du Bois's Data Portraits — Edited Battle-Baptiste & Rusert
Visualising Black America from 1900
Data Feminism — D'Ignazio & Klein
A new way of thinking about data science and ethics
Semiology of Graphics — Jacques Bertin
Metropolitan World Atlas — Arjen van Susteren
Beautiful Evidence — Edward Tufte
Visualizing Data: Exploring and Explaining Data with the Processing Environment — Ben Fry
Information Design Workbook — Jill Vacarra and Kim Baer
Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information — Manuel Lima
Infographics Designers Sketchbooks — Steven Heller and Rick Landers
Design and Redesign in Data Visualisation — F. Viégas & M. Wattenberg
Market Cafe Magazine
The world’s first magazine about data visualisation
Data&Eggs
Curated collection of data storytelling
Soundscape, The tuning of the world — R. Murray Schafer
The Poetics of Space — Gaston Bachelard
Ways of Seeing — John Berger
Design as Art — Bruno Munari
Da Cosa Nasce Cosa — Bruno Munari
Questions in Dataviz — Neil Richards
EVENTS
IEEE VIS
Premier venue for visualization research
OpenVis Conf
Practitioner conference on open visualisation
Data Visualisation Society Meetups
Global community-run visualisation events
Tapestry Conference
Storytelling with data, annual event
NACIS Annual Meeting
North American Cartographic Information Society
Information+ Conference
Multidisciplinary design and information conference
Outlier Conference — DVS
Annual gathering of the Data Visualisation Society
Creative Data Summit
Creative direction and data design talks
NEWSLETTERS
Data is Plural
Jeremy Singer-Vine's weekly dataset newsletter
Chartr
Data-driven stories in your inbox
The Pudding Newsletter
Essays in visual journalism
Observable Newsletter
Dataviz notebooks and community highlights
Data Elixir
Weekly data science newsletter
Nightingale Weekly — DVS
Data Visualization Society weekly roundup
Technically
Tech journalism with data
One Chart at a Time
Bite-sized chart critique and inspiration
The Art of The Process
All the behind the scene of data-art installations and research
PLATFORMS
Observable
Community notebooks for data analysis and visualization
Kaggle
Data science competitions and collaboration
Info Data by Il Sole 24 Ore
The Upshot by The New York
TimesLes Décodeurs by Le Monde
The Chart Doctor by Financial Times
Graphic Detail by The Economist
Visual complexity
videos, talks, keynotes
TEDx, How sound data can recreate lost memories — Tiziana Alocci
TED, See how the rest of the world lives, organised by income — Ana Rosling
The Joy of Stats — Hans Rosling
TED 3 ways to spot a bad statistic — Mona Chalabi
TED, The best stats you've ever seen — Hans Rosling
Journalism in the Age of Data — Geoff McGhee
TEDxBoise Why everyone should be data literate — Jordan Morrow
TEDxZurich Listening to data from the Large Hadron Collider — Lily Asquith
Art made of data (TED Playlist)
Sonification for Geoscience: Turning data into sound — Karen Mair
Chandra X-ray Observatory, Supernova 1987
A Sonification Rythmetic — N. McLaren & E. Lambart (1956)
Powers of Ten — Charles & Ray (1977)
Repetition, M. Cooper, video — Kevin McGloughlin (2019)