These 5 data visuals of February 2020 are the pieces we wish we had done because of their awesomeness! Each month we select five amazing data displays to showcase to our audience. This month, we picked 5 pieces that do a phenomenal job of packing a lot of data and putting it in a visual that looks sharp. In this article we will discuss what we loved about each one of the charts.

1. Flying High: The Top Ten Airline Routes by Revenue (Visual Capitalist)

This display from VisualCapitalist does a fantastic approach on a different view point of showing the globe. Most standard map type charts flatten the earth on the Prime meridian. This chart takes the idea of flattening the map from the top! Viewing the world from the top gives a great perspective on flights that are made around the planet.

On top of the change of perspective, this chart's color selection does a great job of using a teal for the map and the lines as a rainbow of contrasting colors to teal. This chart does a great job of keeping it clean and simple and using color contrast to do the highlighting.

2. Twitter Sentiment Index (CJ Ezinne)

During the election season, some of the most creative ways to display data arise. And this visual from CJ Ezinne takes live twitter from political mentions and turns it into an easy to see chart, IN REAL TIME! This chart seems simple, but behind the sense is what makes this chart amazing.

This simple line chart is gathering Twitter data in real-time on democratic party candidates mentions on twitter. After it collects this data, it then decides if the comment or mention is positive or negative in content. This chart then makes this massive machine learning model processing and provides it into a trend line. Now anyone can see who is being spoken of positively on twitter and which candidate is being addressed in a negative light.

3. The Oldest Company in Every Country - Still in Business (BusinessFinancing.co.uk)

This chart from BusinessFinancing.co.uk can make big companies look really tiny in the world. This chart has a great color selection for a map type display. Then on top of the colors, the lines are spaced almost entirely apart with sharp angles giving it a futuristic computer chip type of overlay on the map.

When you scroll down on the site, each continent breaks down to provide an enlarged view. On the main route, the section of expanding Europe is executed beautifully while still balancing the chart as a whole. Oh not to mention the cutie little icons this has as the company. This map packs a ton of data in a clean colorway!

4. 13,000 Missing Flights: The Global Consequences of the Coronavirus (New York Times)

With the coronavirus still scaring people, this chart shows how the virus is affecting the flight traffic of the outbreak area. This animated map of flights by NYTimes puts into perspective the amount of travel stopped by the fear of spreading.

This map uses red planes that show where the flights come and go to China during regular operation periods and compare them to what the travel currently looks like in the same area. The viewer sees this large big cluster of planes overlapping on the left side, while there are barely any flights on the right. The volume on the right is so small that the aircrafts can be easily counted. And as these little planes fly around China, it is a somber reminder that anything can cause economies to slow down.

5. Bloomberg’s Immense Spending Gets him 30,000 Online Ads a Minute (Washington Post)

Going back to a political chart, the Washington Post made a chart comparing how one candidate is spending money on advertising to win the democratic nomination. That candidate is Mike Bloomberg. Bloomberg has spent over 233 million dollars on ads. When this is put into a data viz, the scrolling keeps going and going. But during the scroll, the chart provides small comparisons against related spending habits of other candidates.

At the very top of the page, the first thing in view is a chart that displays the count of ads bought by Bloomberg since you entered the page. One of the first comparisons is the spending by President Trump. Bloomberg blew President Trump's spending greater than ten times! Mike Bloomberg spent that amount of money on over 1.6 million ads. And the counter keeps increasing at a fast rate.

These five data visualizations are the five that we at Howmuch.net wish we would have made in February 2020. These visuals accomplish one of the hardest goals of a visual data designer, pack a lot of data and make it look clean. What visual did you like best? What chart did we miss for this month? Let us know in the comments.