Cédric Scherer

@cedricscherer.com

5889 Followers 703 Following

🧙‍♂️✨📊 Independent Data Visualization Designer, Consultant & Educator Check out our interactive #ggplot2 and #dataviz online learning experience: https://ggplot2-uncharted.com All things data & design. Co-Founder of the #30DayChartChallenge

A stylized, US-themed visualization where each state is represented by a star, arranged roughly by its geographic position and color-coded with a red-white-blue gradient by its first letter.

An animation showing 41 maps from the module 5 of ggplot2 uncharted.

The title slide of my talk "Guide the View: Design that makes data easier to read and communicate".

screenshot of exercise 5 in our coordinate system lesson in "ggplot2 unchartred" shwoing the solution which is a ciruclar heatmap of (fictious) traffic data per hour and weekday.

a multi-plot composition of three charts using the orange tree growth data: a timeline, a bar chart and a boxplot. taken from the exercises in our course "ggplot2 uncharted".

Screenshot from our lesson on geometric layers, showing two examples of a timeline (with made-up data just for showcasing): first as overlapping areas – via geom_area(position = "identity") – and one with relative share by simply using position = "fill" instead.

A recording of the patchwork playground widget, building simple and more complex layouts with the operators +, / and | in combination with nested sub-groups (in parentheses).

A nested facet of fictious sales trends for departments (main groups, here Office, Services, and Tech) and product categories (sub group, here Paper, Pens, Cloud, Laptops, and Phones).

A heatmap showing average ratings for the first 27 seasons of the Simpsons with several call-outs and annotations.

My handle in the BlueSky community map

A colorful data visualization of IMDb ratings for the first 11 seasons of The Simpsons. The chart uses a "small multiples" layout where each season (S1—S11) is represented by a vertical column. Individual episode ratings are shown as small white circles plotted against a vertical axis ranging from 5 to 9. Each column features a unique, vibrant color—starting with purple for S1 and moving through blue, teal, green, yellow, orange, red, and ending in grey for S11. A horizontal line in each column indicates the season average, while a unique "stepped" gradient effect creates horizontal bands of color that grow lighter toward the top, highlighting the density of the episode ratings.

Line chart of Google search interest for “Christmas gift wife” and “Christmas gift husband” from November 18 to December 24. Bold lines show the average pattern across 2020–2024, while lighter shaded lines represent individual years. Shaded areas highlight which term has higher search interest at each point in time. The chart shows that searches for gifts for wives peak later in December than searches for gifts for husbands.

A ridgeline chart with two groups over a long period (73 years), with one group being quite constant and one meandering from right to left with multiple hills appearing now and then.

Side-by-side comparison of two multi-panel bubble charts faceted by world region. The left column shows the default facet labels placed above each panel (“Africa”, “Americas”, “Asia”, “Europe”, “Oceania”). The right column shows the same charts, but the facet labels are moved inside each panel at the top-left using a negative margin. In the center, there is a title reading “Want to place your facet labels inside each panel?” with an arrow pointing right, followed by a short ggplot2 theme code snippet demonstrating how to move strip text inside the panel.

The room sign for "Dunkelparty", a party room with disco light

A video with snippets of our interactve elements like

In-browser R sandboxes
Run, tweak, and experiment with R code directly in your browser.

Explorer widgets for layers, scales, themes, color palettes, and more
See what each option does through intuitive, dynamic interfaces.

Quizzes & projects
Test your understanding and apply new skills in structured, practical tasks.

Interactive cards on dataviz principles
Flip through playful cards to explore core concepts.

Tabsets for showcasing code & plot variants
Compare code snippets, plot outputs, and explanations side by side.

Toggleable hints & optional deep dives
Get help or extra detail exactly when you want it.

Access to our Discord community
Share visualizations, ask questions, and get feedback from others.

Black Friday promotional graphic with discounted pricing.

A sticker of Waddles (the 15-pound pig from Gravity Falls) next to my touchpad.

A screenshot of Richard's gallery on Instagram

A blue-shaded version of the photo with inconsistent changes in lightness. Two generic heatmaps below compare that palette with a well-designed gradient with linear change in lightness.

A photograph of two apes (mother holds her child) and three recolored versions of the same phtograph using three palettes of different quality.

A treemap showing the world’s population by country, grouped by continent. Each rectangle’s area represents a country’s estimated 2023 population, with labels on the 10% most populous countries. Asia dominates with over 60% of the global population, followed by Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania.

A photograph from the photo shooting with me sitting on the couch in my office with headphones and one of our cats next to me, shrugging.

A screenshot from the outro of a episode of "Welcome to Gravity Falls" with a swine pointing to a (badly designed) pie chart and the meme text "dis pie chart - i ated it"

Title slide for our talk at useR entitled "Plot Tiwst:Adding interactivity to the elegance of ggplot2 with ggiraph"

One of many line graphs in the NASA Mariner-Venus Report from 1962. Due to the rather black and bold and many grid lines, the straight lines that show the results (which are also black) are almost invisible.

Screenshot of the gauge chart, along with the code in our interactive in-browser sandbox in the coordinate lesson of our course "ggplot2 uncharted".

Animated gauge chart ranging from 0% to 100%, with a color gradient from red through yellow to green. A needle sweeps upward rapidly at first, then slows slightly as it approaches the maximum value. A label inside the dial reads “Performance:" plus the current value, colored with the repsective color on the gauge.

A collage of a decluttered, colorful bar chart and two reworked version — one with ranked vertical bars, all with the same weight, and a cleaner theme direct labels. and a more descriptive title, and the other with a key message highlighting the 7th ranked urban area Berlin in both the title, and the chart itself.

A retro-vibe bar chart with many colors and a grey theme with too many labels, grid lines, and font styles, rotated labels, a superfluous legend and more.

A collage of colorful hex logos from popular ggplot2 extension packages. Each hex represents an R package that expands ggplot2’s functionality. The overall layout celebrates the diversity and creativity of the ggplot2 ecosystem — while being able to just show a tiny sample from it.

A screenshot of the anthem (and the introductory text to understand the context):

Again, ask yourself: Am I setting or mapping?
Now, repeat with me...

🎶
🎶 Columns inside, constants out —
That's what aes() is all about 🎶
🎶

Screenshot of the header of the third lesson in module 1, "Foundations of ggplot2", of our interactive online course ggplot2 [un]charted.

A screenshot of the bonus lesson "Getting Started: A Quick Introduction to R" with the title, a short intro and the first part on "Executing R Code". Also shows the first code examples which members can execute inside their browser thanks to our sandboxes.

A screenshot of the WIP lesson on principles of ggplot2 showing some of the content and teasing the interactive feature to explore components.

Screenshot of the first lesson called"Why R and ggplot2?". The header text reads:

Course
Foundations of ggplot2
Why R and ggplot?
Why R and ggplot2?
This lesson shows why programming is so powerful for data visualization. It covers what sets R and ggplot2 apart, highlighting their strengths, trade-offs, and how they compare to other tools.

Let's get a clear sense of when and why to use ggplot2!

... and the first paragraphs:

🌍 A World of Visualization Tools
Data visualizations are everywhere— on web pages, in reports, and at the heart of dashboards.

What used to be a time-consuming, manual process is now much faster, thanks to powerful tools that turn raw data into clear, engaging graphics. But with so many options out there, choosing the right tool can be tough 😔.

There are 5 main categories of visualization tools. Some are quick-and-easy chart makers, while others are flexible, code-driven libraries.

The right choice depends on factors like data complexity, custom design, and the need for reproducibility. Explore the categories below to find the best fit for your needs!

Screenshot of the updated testimonial wall on our course webpage with Jorges post as new testimonial.

The landing page of the course "ggplot2 uncharted" with the title teasing it with "Master Data Visualizations with ggplot2".

A picture from 2020 of our cat Lotte who died last night.

Screenshot of the prompts overview graphic on our GitHub repository.

Seven slope charts showing changes in favorability of the USA across seven European countries based on YouGov’s EuroTrack surveys from August 2024 and 2025. Each country is represented by a line connecting its favorability rating in 2024 to its rating in 2025(with filled area below). Denmark, Sweden, and Germany show the steepest declines, with drops of 20 percentage points and more. The overall trend highlights a significant decrease in positive sentiment toward the U.S. following Donald Trump’s return to the political stage.

A line chart with moon charts (an alternative to pie charts with two categories) as point markers. Lines show the black population in Southern states of the US and all other states, the moon charts visualize the share of humans in slavery versus freedom (with two 100% free moons at the end of the timeline in 1870).

$A similar grid-based layout but this time with 3 x 10 squares and visualizations versus image icons grouped together, resembling a classic waffle chart to compare amounts or fractions.$

A visual snapshot of my contributions over four editions.

The set of four galleries tracks my participation in the first four editions of #30DayChartChallenge. Each square represents a prompt: colored squares mark completed charts, while empty squares with an image icon show those I skipped or left unfinished. 2023 is excluded from the completion rate, as I didn't plan to participate that year due to our son’s birth.

A bar chart visualizing Grammy nominations and wins in a single night for select artists, using a "photo viz" style where bars are filled with artist images. The chart highlights Paul McCartney’s record for the most nominations without a win (nine nominations, zero wins). Santana’s record-breaking success rate in 2000 is also shown—winning eight of his nine nominations. Beyoncé’s continued dominance is visualized, with 48 nominations across five award shows (2010–2025) and 20 wins from those alone. Colored sections represent Grammy wins, while desaturated areas indicate losses.

A bar chart visualizing the artists with the most Grammy nominations in a single night. The bars represent the number of nominations, with the filled colored portion indicating the number of awards won and the desaturated portion representing nominations that did not result in a win.

Michael Jackson (1984) and Babyface (1997) lead with 12 nominations each, with Jackson winning 8 awards and Babyface winning 5.

Beyoncé (2023) follows closely with 11 nominations, breaking the previous female record she shared with Lauryn Hill.

Other artists with high nominations in a single night include Eminem (2011) with 10 nominations and 2 wins.

The chart features artist photos as bar fillings, visually reinforcing each individual's presence in Grammy history.

A bar chart visualizing Grammy nominations and wins in a single night for select artists, using a "photo viz" style where bars are filled with artist images. The chart highlights Paul McCartney’s record for the most nominations without a win (nine nominations, zero wins). Santana’s record-breaking success rate in 2000 is also shown—winning eight of his nine nominations. Beyoncé’s continued dominance is visualized, with 48 nominations across five award shows (2010–2025) and 20 wins from those alone. Colored sections represent Grammy wins, while desaturated areas indicate losses.

A photo from the breakfast room showing a circular black-and-white map of Bern.

A comet chart showing the change of usage of geoms for tidytuesday contributions.

A screenshot from my Reader app, showing point 2 of the what's new in R newsletter by David Keyes that features a tutorial on comet charts made in ggplot2 by Owen Phillips.

A photo showing my daughter how she reads "Daphne Draws Data", a kids book on data visualization by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic.

A screenshot of the Der Spiegel article page on party donations.

A screenshot of my gmail header stating that my out-of-office email is activated. It is titled "Festive Slow Mode Activated".

A screenshot of a set of color palettes with color boxes, color keys and specification of the category it encodes. Next to it is a set of four CVD simulations of the same set of palettes.

A line chart with the title "How People Get Their News" showing the primary news resource according to a survey from Pew Research Center. The graphic itself looks like made in (an old version of) Excel and features bad use of colors and shapes, too many labels showing too much detail, a badly ordered legend, screaming text boxes, uninformative titles, and so much more.

A welcome card introducing myself as an independent data visualization specialist. Next to the text there is a custom Open Peeps version of myself shrugging and wearing a t-shirt that asks "got data?".
The text reads: "Welcome 👋 As an independent data visualization specialist, I assist organizations, research teams, and businesses in effectively communicating insights through engaging graphical storytelling and efficient reporting workflows."