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Case Study

Du Bois Data Portraits

Recreated W.E.B. Du Bois spiral data portraits using custom radial geometry in R and ggplot2.

R
ggplot2
Data Viz
Geometry

Overview

A faithful recreation and extension of the Du Bois data portraits using programmatic geometry and meticulous visual encoding.

Problem

Historical portraits needed a modern, programmatic pipeline that preserved their original aesthetic and structure.

Solution

Implemented spiral geometry computations with tidyverse preprocessing and ggplot2 rendering to match the visual language of the originals.

Tech Stack

R
ggplot2
tidyverse
Custom Geometry

Architecture

High-level system flow and core building blocks.

Preprocess

Tidyverse pipelines for data shaping and scaling.

Geometry

Custom spiral and polygon math for ribbon construction.

Render

ggplot2 rendering with curated palettes.

What I'd Improve Next

  • Add interactive annotations for educational context.
  • Publish an open-source visualization toolkit.