The Evolution of Art

I work in the field of graphic design—or visual communications design for those of you younger whippersnappers. Regardless of what you call it, the field itself generally did not become a discipline until the early parts of the 20th century. Obviously, painters and illustrators were performing many of the tasks in the 19th century and before then. But design comes from art, from painting and drawing. How old are those?

Well recent discoveries have just pointed to some really old paintings in Indonesia that rival the ages of what we already know in the cave paintings in France. The significance is that this means art likely did not spread from Europe to Asia as once thought. It either developed independently or stems from an earlier African ancestry. For the purposes of this blog, the writeup I found included an illustration of how these dates were determined.

Indonesian cave paintings
Indonesian cave paintings

Credit for the piece goes to the original authors of the Nature report.

The State of Gay Marriage in the States

I have been fairly out of the loop of the news the last few weeks, but I did at least catch one of the headlines: gay marriage in the States is more legal than ever. Between Supreme Court stays and Appeals Court rulings, gay marriage is now legal in more than 50% of the country—at least by number of states. The Wall Street Journal does a nice job in this static graphic showing just how far equality has come.

Marriage equality
Marriage equality

Credit for the piece goes to Randy Yelp.

Losing Ground

If you want a better understanding of the difficulties facing Louisiana in the coming years and decades, you should start with Losing Ground. It’s a very nice experience that integrates data and narrative along with maps and written word and spoken word to show how badly the wetlands have degraded.

A look at Leeville, LA
A look at Leeville, LA

Credit for the piece goes to Bob Marshall, Al Shaw, Brian Jacobs, Della Hasselle, Ellis Lucia. Edmund Fountain.

Falling Costs of Medicare

Medicare is one of those things that everybody has feared in terms of its impact on our long-term debt and deficit. The New York Times looks at the falling projections over time through a nice, animated line chart. The accompanying article places the cause for these to two factors. First, technical reductions that mean behaviour changes among medical care professionals and patients. Second, to spending reductions through the Affordable Care Act.

Falling spend on Medicare per recipient
Falling spend on Medicare per recipient

Credit for the piece goes to Margot Sanger-Katz and Kevin Quealy.

Judgmental Philly Map

Happy Friday, everyone. To help you waste some of your time today, here is a link to a set of maps of various cities. The twist? They are judgmental. So here is the map of Philadelphia. Though, to judge this piece, it looks more like it is a map of Jersey than Philly.

Judging Philly
Judging Philly

Credit for the piece goes to R Scott Fallon.

Maps of London

A little while back, the Guardian posted an article about an exhibit in London chronicling the history of the city through maps. This is from the time of two competing cities: London and Westminster through to the modern era when those two cities have merged (along with others) to become greater London.

Londinium
Londinium

Credit for the piece goes to the various cartographers over the centuries.

Where the Youth Are Going

Places need young people to support old people. A gross oversimplification, I admit, but a good basic principle. This piece in the Washington Post looks at that shifting balance across the United States. This map and the others supporting it show which areas of the country may have problems in the years to come, especially if they cannot grow their youth population.

Youth growth
Youth growth

Credit for the piece goes to Jeff Guo.

Twitch.tv

Twitch.tv is a site where people can go to watch streaming video games. While it is not quite my thing, it is a thing for enough people that Amazon bought the site. The New York Times took a look at Twitch’s popularity.

Twitch viewership
Twitch viewership

Credit for the piece goes to Gregor Aisch and Tom Giratikanon.

FAA Fire in Aurora

Last Friday a fire in an FAA centre in one of Chicago’s suburbs shut down air traffic in the Chicago area. You know, not a big deal. So the Chicago Tribune made a small graphic to show just how much of a difference a closure of air space can make.

Air traffic shutdown
Air traffic shutdown

Credit for the piece goes to the Chicago Tribune’s graphics department.

Linguistics Are…Um…Fun?

So today is Friday and that means it is time for some…um…lighter than usual content. Consequently we have a map from Quartz looking at the preferred use of um or uh.

Mapping the preference for Um or Uh
Mapping the preference for Um or Uh

Credit for the piece goes to the Quartz graphics department.