About

Chart Porn is compiled by Washington DC based economist/artist Dustin Smith.  This site grew out of an admiration for all the amazing data analysis work being done in the world, and the desire to pull it all together in one place to feed into my personal creativity- rolodex.  The blog’s original focus on economics and graphic design has expanded over time to cover a wide range of topics.

Please email me (dustin@chartporn.org) if you have any suggestions or comments. I don’t always have time to reply to every email – but I do read them all.

Enormous thanks to the bloggers who assist in finding this stuff, and to the wonderful researchers, analysts, and graphic artists who created them in the first place!  Please forgive the occasional lapse in blogger etiquette — I always try to link to the original source and credit any bloggers/artists appropriately, but I’m sure I miss the target occasionally.

Thoughts on Blog Monetization:

Original slightly smug statement on monetization (February 2009).

I created Chart Porn because I love charts. I love graphic design. I love data. I love visualizations.  I love sharing  with other people the information, perspective, and inspiration that I gain from all these works of data art.

I maintain Chart Porn because it’s fun. I have enjoyed watching it evolve over time, and I am regularly entertained by the emails I get behind the scenes from designers, news outlets, researchers, software companies, students, and other bloggers.

A friend asked if I was making any money from the site now that it has a bit of a following. To be honest, I hadn’t thought seriously about it before then. I have a full time job. Hosting Chart Porn doesn’t cost all that much, and I’ve always thought of it as a gift. Besides, I love the minimalist design of the site and don’t want to mar it with tacky advertisements.

After giving it some thought, I decided to add a donation box to the sidebar of the website. If Chart Porn makes you laugh  or look at the world differently on a regularly basis, then please feel free to click on the box and paypal a donation. If not, that’s fine too. I’ll keep posting cool charts either way.

Update, December 2010: With some regret, I am going to start experimenting with ads on Chartporn. The blog’s success has increased bandwidth use by more than 400% in the past year, while the donation box has gone largely unused.  Handling this kind of demand (and future growth) has forced me to look into funding options. I will try to keep the ads as un-obnoxious as possible. Feel free to complain, scream, and shout about me being a sell-out, if the urge strikes you.  On the other hand, lingering guilt from doing this will likely motivate me to work harder to dig up the good stuff for you, and make further improvements to the site.

Of course, if you prefer to support the site through donations please click on the donation box below:

Thanks!
-Dustin