Hubspot and Visage recently released this excellent guide to designing charts and graphs for data visualisation. They run through each type of chart, giving advice on which are appropriate for certain types of data.
There’s also helpful Dos and Don’ts for each chart type, to ensure that you display your data clearly and coherently.
It’s great, beautifully designed (of course) and will be useful even if you’re putting charts together in Microsoft Office rather than using design software.
The guide is free; you just need to provide your email addresss to download it.