Tag: design

  • The New Longest Flight

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    You might recall that back in March I wrote about the use of spherical maps to show great circles. This helps illustrate the actual routes that aircraft take in flight. (Yes, actual flight plans deviate based on routes, weather, traffic, &c.) At the time I wrote about how there was a soon-to-be Singapore–New York route.…

  • Development Languages

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week the Economist published an article sort of about my industry. Now I am a designer and more familiar with the front-end design and some HTML and CSS, but a lot of the things I have designed over the last few years have needed some serious developers with some serious skills. And those guys…

  • Differences Between Print and Online

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    On Monday I read, in print, part of a page one article in the Times. I ran out of times given the whole new royal baby coverage, and opted to read the rest digitally. Originally, this was just for my own enjoyment as there were no graphics in the article. But this one appeared online.…

  • Where Creativity Goes to Die

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    I know I spent yesterday on the NFL Draft and that a lot of you would regard that as the lighthearted piece for the week. But trust me, here in Philly, it’s not so much. Just walk three blocks west from my flat. So today we have another piece from This Is Indexed that looks…

  • Baselines Are Important

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week the Washington Post published a fascinating article on the data visualisation work of the Donald Trump media campaign. In my last job I frequently harped on the importance of displaying the baseline and/or setting the baseline to zero. When you fail to do so you distort the data. But maybe that is the point…

  • Miniature Ball Fields

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week Jackie Bradley Jr., the starting centerfielder for the Boston Red Sox, saw his hit-streak end at 29 games. For those of you who do not follow baseball, that means he hit the ball and reached first base safely without causing an out for 29 games in a row. Quite a feat. Anyway, because…

  • Where Is Pennsyltucky?

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    Brendan Barry
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    So last week I mentioned Pennsyltucky in my blog post about Pennsylvania’s forthcoming importance in the election. And then on Friday I shared a humourous illustrated map of Pennsylvania that led into an article on Pennsyltucky. But where exactly is it? Luckily for you, I spent a good chunk of my weekend trying to find…

  • Design and Data Visualisation

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today’s piece features a critique of the data visualisation world from Christopher Ingraham at the Washington Post. It centres on the difference between these two maps. The one on the left is Ingraham’s and the one on the right from the Pew Charitable Trusts. I do not want to spoil or ruin the article for you—it’s…

  • The London Underground Typeface

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Johnston, the typeface of the London Underground, turns 100 this year. And so last Thursday the Guardian posted a short article about the typeface. It is worth a quick read, if only for the description of serif typefaces as “letters without the little flicks at the end of their strokes”. Some people overlook typeface selection…

  • Details in Charts

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today we are looking at a smaller piece from the Washington Post. The graphic fits within an article about US stock prices. What the graphic does is show the total scale, i.e. starting the chart on the 0 axis, and then showing in detail the fluctuations near the maximum end of the scale. And yet…