Principles for constructing better statistical graphics

Rafe Donahue teaches in the Department of Biostatistics at Vanderbilt. In 2008, 2010, and 2011 he offered a course in statistical graphics at the Joint Statistical Meetings. He's also offered a follow-up version of the course as part of the American Statistical Association's LearnStat program. His course notes are available on-line as a PDF (http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/wiki/pub/Main/RafeDonahue/fscipdpfcbg_currentversion.pdf). I haven't had a chance to study them carefully yet, but it looks as if they have some good ideas, and Andrew Gelman thinks "it looks pretty good". That's a pretty good indication that it's worth taking a look at.