I have only ever been to Brussels once and that was only to the airport for a brief layover whilst en route to Vilnius for work. I flew Brussels Airlines for the European segment of the trip and I snagged these photos from the in-flight magazine. Felt appropriate today.
The types of aircraft Brussels Airlines flew at the timeThe seating options on Brussels Airlines flightsThe layout of Brussels Airport
Unfortunately it was a short layover and I was exhausted from the flight, so I never had the opportunity to take photographs of the interior wayfinding and graphics.
Credit for the pieces goes to the Brussels Airlines graphics department.
Alas, these are not the fun type of parties, but the two main US political ones. But overall, before some more primary and caucus votes tomorrow, I think this Wall Street Journal piece nicely captures and illustrates the changes in and the differences between the bases of the two parties.
The makeup of the two large US political parties
Credit for the piece goes to the Wall Street Journal graphics department.
Well Happy Friday, everyone. Today’s chart is a serious subject: the (brief) recovery of the S&P 500. But because this is Friday, take a look at the annotations on the chart.
Last night contained one victory for John Kasich. The Ohio governor outlasted all but Trump and Cruz and therefore represents the only establishment candidate. He also supposedly represents the moderate wing of the Republican Party. But within an article on FiveThirtyEight is a map showing how he may not be as moderate as he claims. Kasich has signed legislation creating difficult conditions for clinics and so many have closed.
Beyond Donald Trump, Capitol Hill finds itself consumed by the vacancy left by Antonin Scalia. Democrats insist President Obama’s eventual nomination should be considered by the Senate. Senate Republicans rebut saying that a vote should not happen until the next presidential term. That would be the longest, by nearly a factor of three, the Supreme Court has had a vacant seat.
The New York Times put together a graphic article exploring the timeline of Supreme Court nominations: when the seat became vacant; when the successor was nominated; and whether the nominee was accepted or rejected.
Recent history
What I really enjoy is the reversed convention of a timeline. I have made timelines myself on a few occasions and placed recent events at the top, as like here, or to the left in a horizontal format. The idea being recent data and history is more relevant than distant historic information. But placing the relevant data at the bottom or far right makes it more difficult to access.
The timeline bit I like also finds itself in the representation of presidential terms, which the designers chose to display as a countdown from four years from left-to-right. That works very well given the narrative.
And it goes without saying that the annotations add invaluable context.
Overall, a very solid piece.
Credit for the piece goes to Gregor Aisch, Josh Keller, K.K. Rebecca Lai, and Karen Yourish.
Another Tuesday, more primary and caucus victories for Donald Trump in his quest to become the Republican nominee. However one of the refrains you hear from the right is that he is not a true conservative. How true is that? Well the BBC put together an article comparing Trump to the other candidates and some previous Republican presidents on various issues like foreign policy.
Republicans on foreign policy
Okay, so it sort of works with cutout photos of people pasted onto an American flag background. But I cannot quite take the piece seriously because of its amateurish design. Maybe the American flag makes sense as a background graphic? But the heads? Surely not.
So what happens if we take a more serious approach—though I admit originally the idea of a Trump candidacy seemed farcical—to this graphic? Well I took a quick stab this morning.
My take
Credit for the original goes to the BBC graphics department.
As I alluded to yesterday, in addition to visualising Irish election results the Irish Times built a coalition builder.
The current coalition is far from a majority in the new Dáil
The principle behind the visualisation is sound: how could a government be created? And so the user goes away and creates his or her fantasy government. From a design perspective, the piece is nice with bold, party-related colours and clear controls. The Irish Times also included a nice subtlety with independent TDs (members of the Dáil) as clicking the plus button does not add all ten, but one person at a time. That reflects the fact the independents are not a whole party but ten individuals.
But I personally keep returning to a single question: how realistic are these fantasies? I think an addition that would benefit the story-telling element of the piece would be a guided narrative. Start with the screenshot above, which presents the coalition from the previous Dáil. Clearly they are far from a majority. A guided narrative could explain the likelihood and possible priorities of a various number of plausible coalitions. It would also be able to exclude the more ridiculous pairings.
Credit for the piece goes to the Irish Times’ graphics department.
Ireland calls its lower-house of parliament the Dáil and its prime minister taoiseach. When I visited Dublin, election season was in full swing and upon the first Friday of my return to Chicago, Ireland went to the polls to elect the 32nd Dáil. The vote resulted in a hung parliament, i.e. with no single party in control—there are more than two political parties. The Irish Times put together an interactive piece looking at the makeup of the new assembly. (There is also a coalition builder, but we will take a look at that separately.)
The Dáil by age
Credit for the piece goes to the Irish Times’ graphics department.
