Examining How We Measure Our Lives

Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation

  • This Friday we look at plastic or cosmetic surgery. Because you should always feel better about yourself before the weekend begins. The work comes from the National Post and it looks at the popularity of specific types of surgeries for men and women over the last several years. It’s a nice use of small multiples, line charts, and bar charts…

    Read on…: Plastic Surgery

  • Rarely do I have criticism for infographics or pieces published by the New York Times, and admittedly this time I no longer have the original. However, in May, the Times published a map that was printed in black and white in their paper. I could not make heads or tails of what the map was attempting to say. I later…

    Read on…: Black and White Maps

  • More formally known as Operation Chastise, the Dambusters Raid occurred just over 70 years ago on 16 May 1943. That night, 19 RAF Lancaster bombers flew over the English Channel with the objective of busting open three dams to flood and cripple the electricity- and water-supplies to the all-important German Ruhr industrial valley. Canada’s National Post looked at the bombing…

    Read on…: Dambusters

  • Dornier was a German aircraft manufacturer active during World War II. One of their more interesting designs was the Do-17 bomber, nicknamed the Pencil Bomber because of its unusually thin fuselage. All surviving examples of the aircraft were thought destroyed until one was found on the floor of the English Channel. Yesterday the Royal Air Force Museum raised it from…

    Read on…: Digging up a Dornier

  • On 21 May, Angelenos went to the polls to elect the next mayor of Los Angeles. The contest followed an earlier vote that prompted the day’s run-off election. This graphic from the Los Angeles Times examined the contributions to the campaigns of the two finalists, Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel. The overall piece features an interesting interactive component that allowed…

    Read on…: Campaign Contributions

  • Theoretical/hypothetical maps can be a lot of fun, as well as informative. Today’s post exemplifies both. Pangea was one of those super-continents where all the Earth’s landmass was mashed together into one giant continent. It broke up a few hundred million years ago into the geography with which we are roughly familiar. But I have always been curious which places…

    Read on…: Political Pangea

  • The Washington Post looked at the testing of the first atomic bomb at White Sands. Nuclear weapons are a topic on which I have done some work in the past. But this piece looks more at the historic test called Trinity. Credit for the piece goes to Alberto Cuadra and Laris Karklis.

    Read on…: Testing the Atom Bomb

  • I’m not a coffee guy. I drink tea. At most I have one or two espresso drinks per year. But up in Boston, they have been looking this week at coffee preferences. The question is which is your coffee spot? Dunkin Donuts (from Massachusetts) or Starbucks (from Washington)? Northeast or Pacific Northwest? In a piece that reminds me of the…

    Read on…: Dunkin Donuts vs. Starbucks

  • Today’s post looks at an interactive graphic from the Los Angeles Times. The subject matter is piracy and the piece has three distinct views, the second of which is displayed here. Generally speaking, the package is put together fairly well. My biggest concern is with the first graphic. It uses circles to represent the number of attacks by locale over…

    Read on…: Piracy on the Seas

  • Today’s piece comes from Bloomberg and looks at the cost of Chicago’s gun violence epidemic. And when I write cost, I mean just that. While the lives lost are the most significant, Bloomberg’s article states that shootings cost Chicago $2.5 billion per year, or $2,500 per household. They supplemented their article with an infographic detailing and breaking down these costs…

    Read on…: The Cost of Chicago’s Gun Violence