Thanks BigInch, I hadn't seen that one.

Another site that does some incredible stuff with Excel charts is:http://www.excelhero.com/blogs/

He spends too much time promoting his courses these days, but have a search (for optical illusions for instance) and you'll find some amazing chart work.

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services
http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

Also check out John Walkenbach www.j-walk.com.

His Excel Charts book is a great resource.

Skip,

_{Just traded in my OLD subtlety...
for a NUance!}

I'm sorry. I think those are silly. But I guess they are good for people that don't understand numbers?

Although I do like those curved bars, the ones that look like "bananas" pointing upwards. We used similar to describe attractive (edited).

I'm with Buggar on this (or, at least, with his first sentence).  Most of the charts are just showy cleverness, intended to titillate the eyes rather than inform the brain.  Engineering charts in particular should be guided by the KISS principle.

I totally agree that these are not usually going to be appropriate for display of most engineering data, but if you sometimes have to give a presentation to a mixed finance / legal / hr audience you might score some points for creativity. If nothing else, they could are obviously useful as examples on how not to present engineering data. I liked the balls of yarn and the density displays, either of which represent their data clearly and are a little more imaginative than a steady diet of typical smatterings of boxes, circles and triangles.

ISD, SV, Thanks for the other links.

Use at your own risk.

Yea, if yer preparing charts for other engineer curmudgeons, you just want a standard chart.

But if yer trying to tell a story for certain management or the unwashed masses, you might want something a bit less blasé, which an engineer might on occasion need to stoop to.

Skip,

_{Just traded in my OLD subtlety...
for a NUance!}

Don't forget, we engineers know how to "present" chart data to say what we want it to say without gimmicks.

I always prepare my Budget Expenditure charts on log graphs so it looks like they're only increasing a little instead of exponentially.