Make Beautiful Excel Charts Like The Economist: Excel learning resource
Make Beautiful Excel Charts Like The Economist
Teaches polished chart design for learners improving the visual quality of reports. Watch this video from Leila Gharani and use it to practice Choose the right chart and Format charts clearly.
Why this resource is useful
Teaches polished chart design for learners improving the visual quality of reports.
What to practice while watching
- Choose the right chart
- Format charts clearly
Recommended learning path
Start by watching the lesson once without pausing, then reopen Excel and rebuild the example with your own small dataset. Save one clean practice workbook before moving to the next topic.
Source details
- Channel: Leila Gharani
- Format: video
- Level: Intermediate
- Topic: Charts & Visualization
Go deeper with this skill
Choose a chart that answers one question clearly instead of decorating the worksheet. For this article, the goal is to practice: Teaches polished chart design for learners improving the visual quality of reports. Watch this video from Leila Gharani and use it to practice Choose the right chart and Format charts clearly.
Practice workbook setup
Prepare a table with a date or category column, one main metric, and one comparison metric.
Practice workflow
- Write the question the chart should answer before choosing the chart type.
- Create a simple chart first, then remove gridlines, excess legends, and duplicated labels.
- Use one accent color for the value you want readers to notice.
- Add a plain-English title that states the insight, not just the chart type.
Quality checks
- The chart has one obvious main message.
- Axis labels and number formats match the source data.
- Colors are readable and not overloaded with too many meanings.
Common mistakes
- Using 3D, pie, or combo charts when a bar or line chart would be clearer.
- Letting Excel's default legend repeat information already visible on the chart.
- Showing too many categories without sorting or grouping them.
Next actions
- Create a second version of the chart for a manager who has only 15 seconds to read it.
- Add the chart to a one-page dashboard and check whether it still works at smaller size.
Formula focus: even if this workflow is not formula-heavy, add one check cell that confirms the final output still matches the source data.
