Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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Read on…: Vexing Vexillology
Happy Friday, all. As a young child, I always loved flags. I collected international ones from random places in the US. I no longer collect them, but I still love their design and was fortunate to live in a city that has a good one: Chicago. (Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, sadly, do not have good flags.) Luckily, xkcd sated my thirst.…
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Unnecessary Extra Labelling
Read on…: Unnecessary Extra LabellingI frequently criticise labelling the data values on bar charts, a style seemingly everywhere on the internets. Labels provide precise values, but if you need to see the precise value in a graphic, you don’t really need the graphic—you need a table. Enter this interactive graphic in an article from the BBC exploring hotel bookings ahead of this summer’s World…
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Board of Modern Religious Architecture
Read on…: Board of Modern Religious ArchitectureYesterday evening I received an e-mail about some of my work over on my Ganister website, where I try to capture, record, and preserve the history of the small quarry town in western Pennsylvania whence my grandfather came. The e-mail’s contents led me back to some old photographs I took from my trip to the Old Country back in 2013,…
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Maple Syrup Monday
Read on…: Maple Syrup MondayThis morning over breakfast I was reading an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about Pennsylvania maple syrup production. My breakfast was oatmeal with maple syrup, cinnamon, and all space along with orange juice and a cup of tea. They talked about Pennsylvania’s production and compared it to Vermont’s, which made me want nothing more than to see a visual comparison…
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The Long, Winding Road
Read on…: The Long, Winding RoadAt the beginning of the week I wrote about a table as a chart, for which I designed a light-duty interactive bar chart. Tables can be great, when used well, but they are not ideal for showing trends in data—hence the term data visualisation. But today is now Friday and we made it to the weekend. So I felt this…
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Rise of the Nutters
Read on…: Rise of the NuttersFor most of my life I have been interested in British politics. I can recall talking with my mates about Tony Blair’s Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in high school and at university. During the Brexit debate, my American friends would frequently ask me just what was going on across the pond. Through that point in my life, however, the British…
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Go Fly a Kite
Read on…: Go Fly a KiteThis past weekend I read an article over on Reuters about the cost of electricity for Americans, especially as it pertains to unfinished electrical generation projects. To be fair, I did not read it thinking I would be getting an opportunity to talk about something here on Coffeespoons. Rather, I just received a letter from my own electricity provider warning…
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Back to Boston’s Beginning
Read on…: Back to Boston’s BeginningAnd I don’t mean the city’s. No, 125 years ago today, the Boston Americans, later to be renamed the Boston Red Sox, played their first home game. Not at Fenway Park, mind you, but their original home—the Huntington Avenue Grounds. I decided to make a graphic comparing Huntington Avenue to Fenway, but could not find anything close to an official…
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Just a Little Annoying
Read on…: Just a Little AnnoyingTo be clear, this is a comment on a hero graphic—not an actual graphic representing data. Nevertheless, it does represent the borders of states within the United States. Most obviously, because there is not a giant state called Mosquita occupying the centre of the United States. (Fun fact: there is a Mosquito Coast located in Central America. Today it forms…
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The Broad Street Run
Read on…: The Broad Street RunThis past weekend, Philadelphia hosted the Broad Street Run, a 10-mile run from the “top” of the city’s Broad Street in the north to the end at the bottom in the Navy Yard, a length of—you guessed it—10 miles. And congratulations to my sister for not just running it for the first time, but completing it. Her big brother could…