Explore Explain – Details, episodes & analysis
Podcast details
Technical and general information from the podcast's RSS feed.
Explore Explain is a long-form podcast and video series hosted by Andy Kirk and launched early 2020. It goes deep behind the scenes of data visualisation projects.
Each episode is structured around a conversation with visualisation designers, developers, or data journalists to explore the design story behind a single visualisation or a related major project. Guests explain the thought-process behind and share insights about the myriad little decisions that underpin the finished works they produce.
Audiences will gain an appreciation of the what, the why and the how, learning about the hidden problems and challenges, the breakthroughs and the eureka moments. You'll learn about the things that were done and the things that were not done, the pressures and frustrations as well as successes and failures.
Each season comprises nine episodes and always seeks to include guests representing a diverse cast of talented practitioners from across the field and around the world, showcasing a wide variety of different types of visualisation work.
Every episode is published as both an audio interview as well as an enhanced video conversation, enriched by detailed visuals that illuminate the discussions. Visit the Youtube channel to see all the recordings, including shorter highlight episodes.
To read more about each episode, and browse through the full archive of conversations, visit the Podcast page on Andy Kirk's Visualising Data website. Explore Explain is a Bethany Andrew production.
Recent rankings
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Apple Podcasts
🇩🇪 Germany - design
04/06/2026#50🇩🇪 Germany - design
03/06/2026#34🇩🇪 Germany - design
02/06/2026#24🇩🇪 Germany - design
01/06/2026#18🇩🇪 Germany - design
26/03/2026#91🇩🇪 Germany - design
25/03/2026#87🇩🇪 Germany - design
24/03/2026#60🇩🇪 Germany - design
23/03/2026#52🇩🇪 Germany - design
22/03/2026#41🇩🇪 Germany - design
21/03/2026#29
Spotify
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See allRSS feed quality and score
Technical evaluation of the podcast's RSS feed quality and structure.
See allScore global : 84%
Publication history
Monthly episode publishing history over the past years.
S5E4 - Dominikus Baur & Alice Thudt
Season 5 · Episode 4
mercredi 17 juillet 2024 • Duration 01:17:25
Welcome to episode 4 of season 5 of Explore Explain, a long-form video and podcast series all about data visualisation design.
In this latest episode, I am delighted to welcome Dominikus Baur, Data Visualization Designer & Engineer, and Alice Thudt, Data Visualization Designer, who are based in Munich, Germany. We explore the story behind a project titled 'Full Of Themselves: An analysis of title drops in movies' which analyses and visualises all instances in a movie when one of the characters says the title of the movie. I've been wanting to explore this curiosity myself and so I'm delighted that they've done this and absolute love what they have accomplished!
As well as listening to this show, you can watch the video of this conversation. Head over to Youtube and visit the Explore Explain channel.
S5E3 - Natalie Erdem
Season 5 · Episode 3
jeudi 13 juin 2024 • Duration 01:06:35
Welcome to episode 3 of season 5 of Explore Explain, a long-form video and podcast series all about data visualisation design.
In this latest episode I am delighted to welcome Natalie Erdem, Managing Partner and Product Manager at TWO-N, based in New York City. We explore the story behind TWO-N's development of the MSNBC Election Big Board, the dynamic visualisation tool used by National Political Correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC, Steve Kornacki during the live broadcast of the 2018 US mid-terms and subsequent elections.
As well as listening to this show, you can watch the video of this conversation. Head over to Youtube and visit the Explore Explain channel.
S4E3 - Steph Bradley
Season 4 · Episode 3
lundi 15 mai 2023 • Duration 01:00:53
Welcome to episode 3 of season 4 of Explore Explain, a long-form video and podcast series all about data visualisation design.
In this latest episode, I am delighted to welcome Steph Bradley, a freelance designer based in Chicago, USA. We explore the story behind her work on the wonderfully charming 'Traveling June Bug', Steph's award-winning capstone project to visualise the objects, the diaries, the destinations, and the timelines across her Grandmother's 30 years of documented travels.
As well as listening to this show, you can watch the video of this conversation. Head over to Youtube and visit the Explore Explain channel.
S4E2 - Will Chase & Jared Whalen
Season 4 · Episode 2
mardi 4 avril 2023 • Duration 01:12:46
Welcome to episode 2 of season 4 of Explore Explain, a long-form video and podcast series all about data visualisation design.
In this latest episode, I am delighted to welcome Will Chase, Visual Stories Editor, and Jared Whalen, Data Visual Journalist, both working at Axios and based in the US. We explore the story behind their work on a project to visualise the changing trends in popularity and dimensions of pickup trucks 'Pickup Trucks: From Workhorse to Joyride'.
As well as listening to this show, you can watch the video of this conversation. Head over to Youtube and visit the Explore Explain channel.
S4E1 - Neil Richards
Season 4 · Episode 1
lundi 20 février 2023 • Duration 56:58
Welcome to episode 1 of season 4 of Explore Explain, a long-form video and podcast series all about data visualisation design.
For this season opener, I am delighted to welcome Neil Richards, Global Data Fluency Lead at JLL based in Derbyshire, UK. We explore the story behind Neil's new book 'Questions in Dataviz: A Data-Driven Process for Data Visualisation' to learn about the mental, practical, and creative process of writing his first title.
As well as listening to this show, you can watch the video of this conversation. Head over to Youtube and visit the Explore Explain channel.
S3E9 - Francis Gagnon
Season 3 · Episode 9
vendredi 28 octobre 2022 • Duration 01:18:26
Welcome to episode 9 of season 3 of Explore Explain, a long-form video and podcast series all about data visualisation design.
In this episode I am delighted to welcome Francis Gagnon, founder of Voilà:, an information design firm based in Montreal, Canada.
For this season finale, we embarked on a detailed exploration to learn about the process of setting up a data visualisation company as Francis explained the story behind evolving from being an independent professional, working alone, to a team of nine.
As well as listening to this show, you can watch the video of this conversation. Head over to Youtube and visit the Explore Explain channel.
S3E8 - Ros Pearce
Season 3 · Episode 8
mardi 13 septembre 2022 • Duration 01:08:47
Welcome to episode 8 of season 3 of Explore Explain, a long-form video and podcast series all about data visualisation design.
In this episode I am delighted to welcome Ros Pearce, Visual Data Journalist at The Economist.
We had a detailed conversation to explore the clever thinking behind an in-depth data study titled 'Nearly half of Mariupol has suffered grave damage' looking at the early phase of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, published in April 2022.
As well as listening to this show, you can watch the video of this conversation, illuminated by accompanying visual details of the design workflow. Head over to Youtube and visit the Explore Explain channel.
S3E7 - Mick Yang & Nur Munirah Mansoor
Season 3 · Episode 7
mercredi 27 juillet 2022 • Duration 01:17:12
Welcome to episode 7 of season 3 of Explore Explain, a long-form video and podcast series all about data visualisation design.
In this episode I am delighted to welcome Mick Yang, who at the time of the recording was the Partnerships Executive, and Munirah Mansoor, Visual Designer, at Kontinentalist, based in Singapore.
We had a detailed conversation about the data and design story behind a data story 'Sexual violence in Singapore: a crisis', produced and published by the Kontinentalist studio in 2021.
As well as listening to this show, you can watch the video of this conversation, illuminated by accompanying visual details of the design workflow. Head over to Youtube and visit the Explore Explain channel.
Please note: As the project title will already suggest, please note this conversation discusses the communication and analysis of data relating to sexual assault and violence, hence the decision to mark this episode as including explicit content.
S3E6 - Sam Parsons
Season 3 · Episode 6
lundi 30 mai 2022 • Duration 01:13:40
Welcome to episode 6 of season 3 of Explore Explain, a long-form video and podcast series all about data visualisation design.
In this episode I am delighted to welcome Sam Parsons, Senior Analytics Consultant with Biztory.
We had a detailed conversation about the data and design story behind Sam's visualisation 'Rivers of Time', a vast visual study of time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
As well as listening to this show, you can watch the video of this conversation, illuminated by accompanying visual details of Sam's design workflow. Head over to Youtube and visit the Explore Explain channel.
S3E5 - Valentina D'Efilippo
Season 3 · Episode 5
jeudi 7 avril 2022 • Duration 01:12:04
Welcome to episode 5 of season 3 of Explore Explain, a long-form video and podcast series all about data visualisation design.
In this episode I am delighted to welcome Valentina D'Efilippo, freelance design director, trainer, speaker, and author.
We had a detailed conversation about the data and design story behind Valentina's project 'London Under The Microscope', a unique visualisation-sonification video project portraying the impact of Covid-19 on London.
As well as listening to this show, you can watch the video of this conversation, illuminated by accompanying visual details of Valentina's design workflow. Head over to Youtube and visit the Explore Explain channel.
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