Horizon Graphs and Small Multiples

Horizon Graph

            A horizon graph is a chart that utilizes a diverging color scale, where either end of a data sequence is represented with different opaque colors that stratigraphically become more translucent and similar to the opposing color as the data reaches a start value, to showcase the different values within a dataset.

            To create a horizon graph, one begins with a simple line graph that can go both positive and negative along the X or Y axis.  After a line has been plotted, then a different color is used to represent each group of data within a given range.  Then, all of the different color categories are re-plotted with only positive values on the graph at the axis. 

            An excellent example of a horizon graph can be found at flowingdata.com.  In this example, the author uses a horizon graph to show the fluctuating price of bacon from 1990 to 2015.  These three steps, below, show how the author shifted the data visualization from a line graph to a horizon graph:

Pages: 1 2