Hey there, just a short post this week as I'm on a big thesis deadline, but saw this chart from Slate today and thought it worth sharing.

We're often saying what not to do on Thunderfly (often because there's so many dodgy figures out there), so it's good to see a chart done right.

Six great things about this chart:

1. Title tells the story: what's being shown (GDP share) and what the key story is.

2. Extra data included for comparison: four more key countries are included. These show exactly how far ahead US and China are, while also telling a story in themselves (India having overtaken Germany in 2006).

3. Clear representation of 'latest data': the bold vertical line at 2010 show us where the recorded data stops and the extrapolation starts.

4. Good labelling of lines: each line is labelled intuitively, using the country's initial letter and so avoiding the tedious checking back and forth between key and figure when only colours are used.

5. Clear grid lines: Tufte might consider them a little *too* bold, but the lines stretching across from the vertical axis make it easy to see approximate values at any point on the trend lines.

6. Sources are clearly labelled.

One caveat...
Placing a hand over the chart after 2011, the trend isn't nearly so startling; still significant but not the relentless closing shown on the figure. GDP growth forecasts are iffy at the best of times, so while the trend in recent years is clear, I wouldn't necessarily be confident in extending that into the next few years. Following this, it might be preferable to slightly fade the 'forecast' section of the chart; for example with more translucent lines. As it stands, the 'real' and forecast data are given the same weight, pictorially at least.

Overall, this is an excellent chart, telling a big story at a glance using well sourced data.

(Thanks to @jamiepotter for tweeting the chart)