On Saturday we went to Columbus zoo, apart from enjoying the lions, penguins, birds, I have also learned 5 simple yet effective lessons in visualization.
1. Design your charts for kids – assume your audience knew bare minimum and curious
Above shown is a typical Zoo-mate info dashboard that you can see next to any animal in the Zoo, All the information that a kid needs to know to enjoy the reptile is shown there, a photo, whether the snake is venomous, what it eats, how endangered it is on a gradient scale and where its found usually.
2. Highlight information that is crucial, leave the rest
This is “How to read a Chameleon” next to Chameleon cage, quickly tells how to understand what you are seeing. But if you need to know more about the colors, the research behind it, there is a bigger section beneath this.
3. Use images, examples that your audience can relate to
This is the “measure your ecological footprint” exhibit. They have actually shown various sizes of shoes to compare ecological footprint of various Nationals – India, China, World average, US (not shown) so that kids can easily understand the point.
4. Remember, your audience is there to look at you, listen to your story, the chart is just an enabler
This is outside the area where tigers are kept. Obviously very few people stopped at this infographic, people are all curious to see the tigers. But this chart does tell a very good point about declining tiger habitat across the world, they have used 2 colors per each tiger to convey the point. No gradients or anything… just 2 colors, one for where tigers thrived earlier, and one for where they are today, and the point is obvious for even a kid.
5. Finally, have fun
Outside the building where reptiles were kept, I found this. Having fun in what you do is as much important as telling your story, selling your ideas.
Happy charting 🙂
PS: excuse the poor quality of images, it was dark in most of the places.
11 Responses to “FREE Calendar & Planner Excel Template for 2025”
Hi,
I downloaded this 2025 Calendar template. I checked the custom tab. Is it possible to change the weekend Fri & Sat.
Thanks
It is. Just use the option for fri & sat weekend (should be 7).
Activities of some dates are not getting displayed on "Any month" and "printable calendar" sheets.
e.g. Activity of 24 Apr 25.
Can you check again? The date in "planner" sheet should be a proper date. When I tested with 24-apr-2025, it works.
Love this calendar... I have highlight planner dates enabled but all dates are blue, is it possible to customize the color based on the type assigned to each date?
What would be the right way to add more Holidays in the Customizations?
Inserting rows in the Holiday List causes the blank cells in the calendar to turn Blue.
This is amazing!!! The best I've seen so far!! Is it possible to update it to consider a column for the final date? That way, if an event lasts more than one day, it repeats in the calendar
How do we change/insert the customization "Icon Options" ?
You can adjust these from the settings tab.
Is there anyway this can turn into an academic calendar (ie. start month is July and runs all the way through June of next year)?
Is there a way to make it something that is more than a day without having to add it to every day of that week.