Following last week’s post about Doctor Who comes another because, since this is the last post of the week, you might as well enjoy it. This interactive graphic from the BBC looks at the Doctor travelling across time. And while you might dismiss it as being silly fun, pay close attention to the layering of timelines and the information provided in each line, i.e. click on one. Additionally, the bottom panel contains some broader context. Overall, this is a very smart piece.
The Doctor’s Travels
Credit for the piece goes to iibStudio and the BBC graphics department.
On Sunday night the Denver Broncos played the New England Patriots. The contest sported two of the game’s best quarterbacks: Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. This interactive graphic by the Guardian detailed how, in this season alone, Manning is putting up record numbers.
Comparing Manning’s stats
Credit for the graphic goes to the Guardian US interactive team.
Doctor Who? Exactly. This weekend, Saturday in fact, is the 50th anniversary of British sci-fi show Doctor Who. That is not to say it has been airing for 50 years. In the 1990s and early 2000s the show was off the air, living on only in audio broadcasts and novelisations. But in 2005, the show was relaunched and it slowly began to acquire a new generation of followers. Some, like your author, have watched it in the States first via SyFy since 2006.
Still 50ish years of television about time travelling through space in a blue police box makes for lots of data. And so back in March Simon Rogers created this infographic to explain some of the history of the show.
The Guide to Doctor Who
If you intend on watching the 50th special this weekend—or Monday in some movie theatres here in the States—and you want to brush up on the timeline of the Doctor and his travelling companions, the Guardian also has this graphic.
The Guardian’s gallery of Doctors
But of course the BBC, which produces Doctor Who, has a more in-depth site about the history of the character and the show. Did I mention the content is displayed within the TARDIS? I know, it’s bigger on the inside.
The BBC’s inside the TARDIS
Have you ever watched the show? Do you have a favourite Doctor? A favourite companion?
Credit for the first Guardian piece goes to Simon Rogers.
Credit for the second Guardian piece goes to the Guardian’s Graphic News team.
Credit for the BBC piece goes to Christopher Ashton, Christine Jeavans, Helene Sears, Tian Yuan, Nick Davey, and Ben Fell.
The Washington Post had an interesting story on how, in South Korea, Internet Explorer dominates the internet. I won’t spoil the story, it is kind of fascinating and worth a short read, but the accompanying graphics show just how dominant the browser has been in a leading technology country in Asia.
Last week the Washington Post published a piece that looked at demographic trends and their impact on the world’s different geographies. None of the graphics in the piece are revolutionary, nor are they mind-blowing fantasticness. They are, however, clear and concise and show the story. In fact the overall piece is well done because while the graphics show the trends and trajectories, the written word above and below the graphics explains some of the underlying causes and potential effects. In short, a solid piece that is worth the read.
Today’s post comes via Business Insider. They linked to work by reddit user sp07 who mapped out words used for common objects across Europe and then looked at those words by their origin. But of all words, this is probably the most important.
Today’s piece comes from the National Journal. It is an interactive bubble chart that compares the educated class of cities in 1980 to those in 2010 (educated meaning the share of population with at least a bachelor’s degree).
College graduate cities
Not a whole lot to say about this one, in a good way. A nice summation at the top with clearly presented data below while annotations on the plot call out particular objects in the series worth noting. And then for those who want to find themselves, a drop down filter at the top allows users to select a particular city.
Credit for the piece goes to Brian McGill and Nancy Cook.
On 8 November, Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in the Philippines, killing what may well be 10,000 people. The New York Times covered much of the damage in Tacloban, perhaps the hardest hit city, in this interactive graphic.
Structural damage in Tacloban
Credit for the piece goes to the New York Times graphics department.
Last night was election night. Okay, maybe not the big midterm, but there were still a few interesting races. The one I want to look at it, however, is the gubernatorial race in Virginia. Maps are pretty much the default in big, statewide races like these and it is no surprise that the three screenshots here are use a map as an anchor component.
The Huffington Post uses a scatterplot to compare the margin of victory for Terry McAuliffe to that of Barack Obama in 2012. A technical flaw places the drop down menu atop the plot, unfortunately, but the component works to show differences in just one year.
Huffington Post results
Over at the New York Times, the Virginia results were given a nice overview. Here they used a text summary to explain the race in short. They used a small amount of space to show polling results over time. And then beneath the map they looked at recent elections across the state.
New York Times results
The Washington Post, which reports to the northern counties of Virginia, had a much simpler piece. They used solely a map to present the data.
Washington Post results
Credit for the Huffington Post piece goes to Aaron Bycoffe, Jay Boice, and Hilary Fung.
Credit for the New York Times piece goes to the New York Times’ graphics department.
Credit for the Washington Post piece goes to the Washington Post’s graphics department.
