Canada spends quite a bit of money on foreign aid. Last week a National Post infographic looked at the targets for that aid program and in particular highlighted Haiti, a country that has received large sums after the devastating earthquake three years ago.
Credit for the piece goes to Kathryn Blaze Carlson, Mike Faille, and Richard Johnson.
Apparently the flu is going around. Boston has a city wide health emergency on its account. So if you’re wondering what to do on a sick day, well I shall allow you in all my magnanimity to use a pie chart. As Randall Munroe did.
2012 was the hottest year since 1895. That’s 117 years by my count. Of course just being the hottest year ever recorded does not mean everywhere was warmer than usual. Some places were cooler. And the New York Times looked at the US pattern of warmer and cooler than average temperatures. Below the map are small multiples of charts recording the number of days above or below the normal for that day.
And for anecdotal evidence, I will say that this past summer was godawfully hot in Chicago.
Today the London Underground turns 150. The Tube opened on 9 January 1863. Yes, the whole endeavour is a marvel of engineering, but from a design perspective think of the map, man. Think of the map. The Underground map is now 150 years old. And we all know transit maps are cool.
Of course the map has evolved and changed over all those years and at the Huffington Post UK, there is an article with a slideshow of different maps. The one below being the first map to show the combined lines.
Compare that original system map to the 150th anniversary map.
Credit for the photos goes to the London Transport Museum, via the Huffington Post.
Have you ever wondered what you would do if you caught a US citizen who was a terrorist? No? Well, the folks at the Brookings Institution did and using what is publicly known and inferring from events that have happened they have created a disposition matrix about the decisions made in such scenarios. In short, it is an interactive flowchart with examples and explanations of the various steps.
Credit for the piece goes to Benjamin Wittes and Daniel Byman.
I’m back after two weeks holiday. See, I didn’t forget you. I even brought you presents. Of a sort. From National Geographic come two maps from an article about the poaching of elephants—if I recall correctly.
The first map is the better of the two. It shows the impact of poaching by overlaying the ranges of the elephants in two different years. Not surprisingly, the range has decreased. The map also points out monitored reserves and then aggregates data from those sites into regions, whose illegal death totals are displayed as little filled-in elephant icons. I don’t love the icons, but they are compact, flat, and stack nicely. Almost squarish. So they can work for me.
This second map is less successful. It dedicates a lot of real estate to a large map that is really only used to highlight countries that are quite large. Without any kind of supplemental data as the first map had, e.g. the elephant ranges, I would have likely made the map smaller. The tusk chart below the map…yeah.
Both taken together, I am left with the impression that the full-page graphics were the work of two different hands. The first map has the level of detail of someone who is conversant in and works regularly on infographics. The second page feels a bit weaker, as if from someone not quite so familiar with infographics and how to make the best of them.
Credit for the pieces go to NGM staff.
The holiday card I designed for my employer Euromonitor International wishing you happy holidays.
In the aftermath of last Friday, the Washington Post has an informative guide to mass shootings in the United States in 2012.
Credit for the piece goes to Wilson Andrews, Bonnie Berkowitz, Alberto Cuadra, Emily Chow, Laris Karklis, Dan Keating and Katie Park.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to answer. But a survey of Canadians did. And these are the results, as visualised in this infographic from the National Post.
Credit for the piece goes to Richard Johnson.
The New York Times looks at who controlled the redistricting of US congressional seats because of the 2010 census. It then showed an example in North Carolina where Republican control led to the state being less competitive in the past for Democrats. In 2010, Democrats held 7/13 seats in North Carolina. But after the redistricting, in 2012 the Democrats held only 4/13. And all of this is done in a small, compact space. This is a very effective graphic.
Credit for the piece goes to Tom Giratikanon.
