Brand New Year, Same Old Politics

Today’s piece comes from this past weekend. The New York Times looked at how states fell on various politically sensitive issues, e.g. abortion and same-sex marriage, depending upon the political control of the executive and legislative functions of each state. In other words, which states have passed legislation to regulate abortion or same-sex marriage? States controlled by Democrats, or states controlled by Republicans?

I am not terribly keen on the clustered bubbles. Showing the population of each state could be handled better by different chart forms. But to a certain extent in this piece, the population figures are secondary to the aggregate of people living in blue or red states. And in that case, while you cannot easily visualise the number of people living in the aggregates, you can at least get a feel for which group is home to more people.

Credit for the piece goes to Haeyoun Park, Jeremy Ashkenas, and Mike Bostock.

Author: Brendan Barry

I am a graphic designer who focuses on information design. My day job? Well, they asked me not to say. But to be clear, this blog is my something I do on my own time and does not represent the views of…my employers. I think what I can say is that given my interest in information design—be it in the shape of clear charts, maps, diagrams, or wayfinding systems—I am fortunate that my day job focuses on data visualisation. Outside of work, I try to stay busy with personal design work. Away from the world of design, I have become an amateur genealogist and family historian. You will sometimes see that area of work bleed into my posts. View all posts by Brendan Barry