Process

Behind the work

Finished projects hide the mess. This is the part that usually gets cropped out — the raw inputs, the dead ends, and the passes that made things clear.

  1. 01

    Take the mess as it is

    starts as: A 40-column export with three date formats

    Nothing gets cleaned before it gets understood. I profile the raw file first — row counts, nulls, duplicates, suspicious categories — and write down what looks wrong before touching it.

  2. 02

    Shape it with SQL

    starts as: Rough queries and half-working joins

    Small, readable CTEs instead of one heroic query. Every transformation is something I could explain out loud to whoever owns the data.

  3. 03

    Sketch before styling

    starts as: Pencil charts and throwaway plots

    Fast, ugly charts to find the comparison that actually carries the point. Only then does layout, colour, and hierarchy get any attention.

  4. 04

    Cut the audio and video

    starts as: Raw clips and unscored takes

    Narration first, then trims, then a score that stays under the voice. The edit exists to protect the argument, not to show off transitions.

  5. 05

    Ship, then simplify

    starts as: A working but crowded first version

    The last pass is subtraction — removing a metric, a filter, a sentence — until what remains is the thing someone can act on.