Combining data visualisation with other kinds of media can lead to creative, exciting, surprising and engaging results, as the examples below show.
Trying to tell a story with data visualisation is similar to how comic strips use sequences of frames to tell a story. Researchers noted this and started to study the field of data comics, which combines both fields. Below you can find some examples.
Source: Open borders : the science and ethics of immigration, Bryn Caplan and Zach Weinersmith
Source: xkcd.com/1379
Source: A day in the life of Americans: a data comic, Matt Hong
Source: @WillikinWolf
Some data visualisation designers have developed a very recognisable style by making hand drawn visualisations. One of these is Mona Chalabi.
Source: @MonaChalabi
Source: @MonaChalabi
Data illustrator Gabrielle Merite is adding to the same genre, with collage-like data visualisations.
Source: @Data_Soul
Source: @Data_Soul
Source: @Data_Soul
And even serious businesses like McKinsey are taking a more playful and illustration based approach to data visualisation (at least on social media):
Source: @McKinsey
Sometimes the shape a visualisation takes makes it suitable to be integrated into the layout of an article.
Here is an example by The Washington Post. The shape of the bar chart is “wrapped around” the article itself instead of being embedded in it.