Using Gephi and Figma to map the intricate connections of high society from Julia Quinn’s novel series and Netflix TV show — Bridgerton.
I began by exploring existing network visualizations to understand how stories and relationships are mapped visually. Projects like The Dark Side and the Light and Marvel Cinematic Network inspired me with their scale and interactivity. These examples led me to choose Bridgerton as my subject—its intricate character dynamics and romantic entanglements made it a compelling narrative to visualize.
The graph type is Undirected, as between people, most often they both know each other. I decided to rank my connection type based on the themes of the show.
Importing "House" column
I started to manually adding house column within Gephi. Luckily, I also found typos (Basset) that I made in the Google Sheets.
Nodes, Edges, and Average Degree
101 nodes and 244 edges were mapped, with an average degree of 4.83 and weighted degree of 17.25—suggesting moderate interaction but strong ties. After testing layouts, Force Atlas 2 best revealed emerging connection clusters.
Adding more data and color
The updated data is shown in the comparison image. I added distinct colors for families that marry into the Bridgerton and Featherington lines. The Bridgertons (in pink) remain central, connecting key characters and storylines.
Main character ≠ largest node size
While Daphne and Simon are the main characters of the first book/season, Simon’s node is quite small based on his connection. This is because he doesn’t have family or siblings and our two main characters only have one child together. Daphne also doesn’t have many connections outside of her family.
Relationship between Featheringtons and Bridgertons
There are a moderate amount of connections between the Featherington and the Bridgerton households, most of them are friendships (Aside from Penelope and Colin who got married). However, Eloise and Marina are connected through Phillip Crane and his children. They formed a connection after Marina passed away.
The placement of the employees of the households
I found it fascinating that both employees – Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Varley (in green) both ended up locating in the middle of each households connections. While the weight of the connection is the lowest (1), They are equally as connected to every family member in each household – resulting in this placement.
Legend
I thought it was necessary to include the legend since it is hard to interpret which color is what (aside from the three highlighted families).
Interactions
Then I created components to show the family members of each selected household. The ones in black are important to the storylines.
Average Degree
Finally, I wanted to include a bar chart of average degrees, to portray how the Featherington’s importance to the storyline, even if they are not the main leads.
