Author: Brendan Barry

  • Watching the Iowa Caucus Results

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last night I watched the caucuses from my dinner table via the internets. And I used this handy piece from the Washington Post. The screenshot is from early in the evening before most of the results had arrived. What is really nice is that the site refreshed every thirty seconds. Sometimes nothing happens in a county.…

  • The Iowa Caucuses

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    Brendan Barry
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    If you did not realise it, today is the first day of the second phase of the American presidential election process. Phase 1 was all the posturing and getting-to-know-me stuff from every candidate. A few dropped out, but now the first votes will be placed in the cold and later tonight snowy town centres of…

  • Urban Homicide

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today we look at a really nice piece from the Washington Post on urban homicide. It combines big, full-width images that use interactivity to promote exploration of data. But as you can see in the screenshot below, the designers took care to highlight a few key stories. Just in case the reader does not want…

  • The Zika Virus

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    Brendan Barry
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    The Zika virus is the new health scare. But beyond that, what is it? Well the AFP put together this explainer graphic. Credit for the piece goes to John Saeki.

  • Dude Where Did I Park My Car?

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    Brendan Barry
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    Mother Jones had a lengthy but fascinating piece on urban parking. (I mention the lengthy bit only lest you think it a quick lunch read.) While the design uses a few factettes as sidebars to the main body copy: The more interesting piece is the illustrative comparison of a 1.5 vehicle parking space to the…

  • Blizzard of 2016 Snowfall Totals

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    Brendan Barry
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    You may have heard that the East Coast received a wee bit of snow. Here is the snowfall map from the Wall Street Journal. I can report that my family received 30 inches. Which makes sense, because they live somewhere near here. That’s a lot of snow. Credit for the piece goes to the Wall…

  • Snowmageddon Round 2?

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    Brendan Barry
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    For those of you like myself from the East Coast—even if some of us have unfortunately moved away from civilisation—terms like Snowmageddon and Snowpocalypse draw upon memories of lots and lots of snow. So with all the hype about today’s snowstorm about to pummel the East Coast, the Washington Post took a look at the…

  • US Fed Forecasts

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    Brendan Barry
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    Organisations that forecast things are not often inclined to go back and review their forecasts against the actual results. So that makes today’s post from the Wall Street Journal fascinating. They reviewed the Federal Reserve’s forecasts for US GDP growth against the actual growth. And it turns out the Fed consistently overestimated US growth. From…

  • Symbology for Maps

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    Brendan Barry
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    I’m sure the word you were looking for was symbolism. (Points if you get the reference.) Apologies for yesterday, I was a bit under the weather. Today we deviate from graphs and things and go to another area of conveying information: symbology. I mean iconography. The BBC featured an article about possible new symbols for maps…

  • If the Government Were a Household

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    Brendan Barry
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    One of the things that irritates me about when people complain about government spending is the comparison against household budgeting. The two are very different. I mean on the surface, I suppose yes, both have income and both spend on stuff and services. But, to put it all in context there is this nice piece…