To Get a Good Look, Look Back

If you're looking for a graphic with a fresh look, check out some of the 19th century charts and graphs posted to this site: http://vintagevisualizations.com/collections/charts-graphs

These are similar in style to the those championed by Edward Tufte in his influential book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. I find that their appealing design encourages people to figure out how to use them. Use them to get new idea on how to display data in your latest demonstrative. See this section from a chart showing how the ranking of the most populous cities in the United States changed from 1790 to 1890.