The Marimekko

A one-page marimekko — a mosaic or Mekko chart — the one chart that shows how big each category is and how its make-up differs, at the same time. Every category becomes a vertical column, and the columns tile the full width, so a column's width is that category's share of the grand total: a wide column is a big category, a narrow one is small. Each column is then split top to bottom into coloured segments, one per series, every column running the full height so the bands read as shares of that category. Together you can see a region that dominates the revenue and, in the very same column, that it leans on a single product; a small channel whose mix looks nothing like the big ones. A plain stacked bar can only show the mix, every bar the same width — the marimekko adds the size for free, because the eye reads a wide-and-tall block as genuinely large. The series are named and colour-coded through a shared legend, each column carries its total and width share up top, and wide-and-tall segments show their percentage. It works best for a handful of categories whose sizes really differ — revenue by region split by product, spend by channel split by campaign, market by segment split by brand, headcount by department split by role. List your series once, then a category and its values per line, and the widths, heights, colours and labels all place themselves; leave it blank to print an empty frame and fill it by hand.

• Landscape
• 1 page
• Tracking

Best for: Comparing categories that differ in size and in mix at once — revenue by region split by product, spend by channel split by campaign — as columns whose width is the total and whose height is the breakdown.