Dear Data Two | Week 47: Smells

Let’s get straight to the point…London, you stink! Between your smokers, your trash, and your stinky commuters you need to slap on some deodorant!

For week 47, I tracked every smell or scent that I really noticed. Clearly other London smells really bad or I only notice the bad smells. How can only 1/3 of the things I smell be positive? Really, I think it’s that there are so many smokers that sets me off.

On the positive side, 85% of the food I smelled was nice. But dang, that stinky fish someone was cooking in the office was god awful. Why would someone microwave salmon? So gross! I went down to Brighton for a half marathon over the weekend and, not surprisingly, I really enjoyed the smell of the sea, the fresh air, the not-so-polluted part of England.

For inspiration this week, I looked at Giorgia’s postcard.

Her shapes reminded me of noses, so I found a nose icon and created a panel chart view, which I think turned out quite nice. This was definitely what I wanted to take over to the postcard, yet there was no way I had the talent to draw 45 noses. Off I went to the stationery store to look for a stencil. I couldn’t find a nose stencil, but I did find a cool 3D stencil. So I created 3D ovals and added a bunch of other information for context.

Fortunately Jeff isn’t colourblind, so I stuck with a red/green palette to signify good vs. bad smells. Flip through the story points below to see how my week turned out.