First, I was repulsed by the inscrutable color palette. Then I noticed that "public service or politics" was a single category, and that the numbers on the Y axis go up as they go down.

No, this isn't a joke. He was actually sent this to redesign for a law firm.

Don’t make “no data” look like the logical extension of the low end of the scale.

The error is two fold -

1. coloring in the area under the curve leads to a false visual-comparison of Areas.

2. The correct metric of comparison (if one can be made) should be weighted by time (in years) instead of aggregate figures.

I work in data for a living and it took me several minutes to understand this graph. And it’s from the Washington Post in a data-heavy article. Yikes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/09/13/popular-names-republican-democrat/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=acq-nat&utm_campaign=content_engage&utm_content=slowburn&twclid=2-2udgx1u5pi71u3gpw9gwin8hj