Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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Read on…: Ebola
I really enjoy reading articles where graphics accompany the text and not just for the want of graphics. While the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is tragic, the data allows for some nice visualisation pieces. Additionally, one could say that the United States is victim to quite a bit of scaremongering as a result of a few isolated cases of…
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Hitting a Baseball
Read on…: Hitting a BaseballTonight is Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. For those of you who do not follow baseball, this is the semi-finals for the national championship called the World Series. Anyway, hitting a baseball is hard because you have so little reaction time. The Wall Street Journal has an article about how some baseball teams are beginning to experiment…
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Ebola Treatment Centres
Read on…: Ebola Treatment CentresEbola is still a thing. And it is still getting worse. Or rather, with deaths and/or infections in both Europe and the United States, we are finally paying a bit more attention to it. We have no cure for Ebola, but we still need to treat people for symptoms, but most importantly we need to isolate those infected from the…
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The UK’s Two-party System Continues to Decline
Read on…: The UK’s Two-party System Continues to DeclineIf you missed it, last week the United Kingdom held a few by-elections. For we Americans, those are like special elections for seats in the Senate or the House that are not part of the regular Congressional elections. Anyway, the big news was that the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)—think Tea Party wanting out of the European Union…kind of—won a…
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Wakey, Wakey
Read on…: Wakey, WakeyIt’s time to get up. Whether or not you hear the explicitly Monday morning or if’s meant by your alarm shouting at you, who really enjoys waking up Monday? A lot of the reluctance to wake up may have to do with when one goes to bed. One of my colleagues sent me a post over on Huffington Post that…
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Comparing Geographic Area
Read on…: Comparing Geographic AreaSometimes we need to compare the sizes of things. For Americans, this is obviously best done by comparing everything to America. Thankfully for geography, we now have Comparea to get a better sense of scale. Though, I am highly suspicious about this particular comparison. I think they have it backwards. Credit for the piece goes to Comparea.
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The Evolution of Art
Read on…: The Evolution of ArtI 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…
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Losing Ground
Read on…: Losing GroundIf 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. Credit for the piece goes to Bob Marshall, Al Shaw,…