SHOWCASE
SurĽoh
TIMELINEKey dates for
Nadieh Bremer
SEPTEMBER 2005
Starts studying astronomy at the
University of Leiden, Netherlands.
OCTOBER 2011
Graduates and begins work as a data
scientist for Deloitte Consulting.
FEBRUARY 2013
Learns about the existence of d3.js and
starts to learn JS, HTML and CSS to be
able to work with it.
DECEMBER 2014
Realises that she loves data viz more
than data science and so spends
every free moment learning more about
data visualisation.
DECEMBER 2015
Begins work as a data-visualisation
designer at Adyen.
APRIL 2016
Gives her first conference talk at an
international conference.
JUNE 2016
Embarks on a year-long 12-project-
based data-viz collaboration with
Shirley Wu called Data Sketches.
JANUARY 2017
Starts freelancing under the name
Visual Cinnamon.
NOVEMBER 2017
Wins Best Individual at the 2017
Information is Beautiful Awards.
APRIL 2019
Finishes biggest freelance project to
date, for Google News Lab, visualising
the things people search for around
their pets.Created for the Graphic Science page of Scientific American, this visual reveals the different seasonal
patterns that appear when babies are born in the USin terms of performance. And don’t get
me started on browser bugs...Do you ever regret not becoming a full-
time astronomer?
No, I only regret that I’m slowly losing
my astronomy knowledge over time. But
I truly knew staying in academics wasn’t
for me because I really didn’t enjoy
writing the papers, plus the fact I had to
specialise and probably only a handful of
people would then be able to understand
what I was working on.
I do still get excited though when I
hear about astronomical discoveries in
the news. And I can still talk for hours
about why space is such an utterly
amazing place. It’s probably why I still
end up creating visualisations about
astronomy topics every once in a while.How will data visualisation change over
the next 10 years?
I truly have no idea but it’s certainly
getting bigger. Companies seem to
understand more and more that data
visualisation is a good investment and
that if you want it done well, you need tohire an expert. The number of people
wanting to work in data viz is also
growing exceptionally fast, perhaps even
faster than demand.So what would you like to see happen?
Maybe in 10 years someone will have
figured out how to do good data viz
through AR/VR. I also hope that the
general audience will have gained better
graphical literacy through regular
exposure to data visualisation in the
news, at work and at school.What would you say most people do not
know about you?
That since June 2019 I’ve become
completely addicted to roller skating.
I’m now going to skate dance lessons
and have joined a ramp skating group in
Amsterdam called Chicks in Bowls. And I
skate around my quiet village whenever
the weather allows, trying new moves.
Also, I’m 1.87m (6ft 1in) in height. So
when I finally meet people in real life at
conferences, I’m often told that ‘I look
smaller in my Twitter profile photo’,
which always makes me laugh.