SPOTLIGHTWhat’s on your desktop?
Nothing. I always keep my desktop free
and move stuff that ends up there
almost immediately to other folders.What’s on your desk?
My MacBook Pro and iPad, a 34”
monitor, my cat on her pillow sleeping
away, a big carafe with water and a
holder with pens and such.What’s on the walls?
My favourite two art pieces now are a
generative design work by Matt
DesLauriers and a hand lettering piece
by Gemma O’Brien.What will you do for lunch?
Take a thick slice of our home-baked
bread with some butter and large
chocolate sprinkles (typical Dutch) on
the top.What hours do you work?
I’m a morning person and try to stick to
8am-6pm. I hate it when I need to do
calls after 6pm, which happens due to
the Bay Area being nine hours behind
the Netherlands.What else do you do in the
office?
Pet my cat.How often do you hang out
with other designers?
I try and stay in contact through the
digital channels (mostly Twitter and
Slack) but I’m happy I also get to speak
at conferences a dozen times per year
so I can meet other people in my field
again in real life.Describe your working culture
in three words
Addicted, experimentation and order.SurĽoh
Olympic Feathers is a personal project Bremer created for the Data Sketches collaboration she did with
Shirley Wu. It visualises all gold medal winners of the summer Olympics since the first games in 1896
I’ve made in JavaScript to Adobe
Illustrator to add some final touches that
are easier to do there than through code,
such as a legend or annotations. That
said, I’ve recently started to work with
and enjoy Affinity Designer and might
completely migrate to that for my vector
work in future.
What’s been your proudest career
moment so far?
Winning Best Individual at the
Information is Beautiful Awards in 2017.
Getting that kind of recognition when
there were so many amazing people to
choose from just blew me away. I didn’t
see it coming and went on stage at the
ceremony totally unprepared,
overwhelmed and exceptionally
honoured. It really boosted my self-
confidence, especially since starting out
as a freelancer that year had been such a
scary step.
What are the biggest mistakes people
tend to make when they are creating
data visualisations?
Not taking the time to think about the
visual form they’ll put their data into. I
see a lot of people who think that any
chart form will work just as well – bar
chart, line chart – as long as the data is
made visual. They just go straight from
the data in a sheet to the ‘available
chart list’.
However, getting the basic chart
form right is actually the most
important factor in determining
whether the visual will be effective. So
take some time to think about your
goal. What does this visual need to
teach people and what is the best way
to convey this? Even sketching out
some very rough possibilities and
trying different chart forms can make
all the difference.What do you love most about your work
and which parts are the least fun?
What I love most is the designing of the
visual and creating the static part
through code. To build up the idea with
the actual data, start to experiment
with design ideas and see it slowly
come to life. The least fun part – aside
from reading and creating contracts –
is making the visual work on both
mobile and desktop: there’s such a
giant difference in space available to
work with! It puts a no-fun constraint
on my creativity.
I’m also quite bummed out when I
need to compromise on a design idea I
have because the browser can’t keep up