I just ran across chartsnthings (h/t to Gelman). Kevin Quealy at the New York Times graphics department shows the progression from initial sketch to final graphic.

Thoughts:

1) I love seeing other people's first sketches. I sketch first too, and I find that the quality of any graphic can mostly be determined by how good the idea was when I first sketched it.

2) This reminded me that rather than using R to make my final figures, I really need run them through...