Parking in LA

Today’s piece comes via a colleague with the original article appearing in Wired. The article looks at new parking signs that the city of Los Angeles has proposed. The reason? Parking on streets with multiple signs for parking sometimes make no sense. These signs aim to simplify the communication of those parking regulations.

The proposed new LA parking signs
The proposed new LA parking signs

Credit for the piece goes to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, which was inspired by Nikki Sylianteng.

Borehole Graphics

Long articles often mean lots of vertical space. But it is only every so often when an item can complement itself with a narrow, vertical graphic. The Los Angeles Times has just that in today’s piece, looking at the layers of sedimentation from a borehole.

What's in the borehole?
What’s in the borehole?

Credit for the piece goes to Thomas Curwen, Lorena Elebee, and Javier Zarracina.

The Tallest of the Tall (in Los Angeles)

I have always had an interest in architecture. And so this piece from the Los Angeles Times is just because I like to indulge myself every so often, a look at the five tallest buildings in Los Angeles.

Map of the five tallest buildings
Map of the five tallest buildings

Credit for the piece goes to Scott J. Wilson, Matt Moody, and Anthony Pesce.

LAX Shootings

I didn’t see a lot of informative graphics regarding the shooting at LAX. But, here are two pieces. The first is from the Los Angeles TImes. Terminal 3 is rendered in three dimensions. Different buttons add views of the remainder of the airport.

Los Angeles Times' terminal diagram
Los Angeles Times’ terminal diagram

The Washington Post opted for a flat, two-dimension drawing in one graphic with both all of LAX and Terminal 3 in the same graphic.

Washington Post's terminal diagram
Washington Post’s terminal diagram

The thing about the three-dimensional rendering is that it adds too much complexity whereas the two-dimensional schematic strips most of it out. Is it important to know the specific details of a building? Or is it more important to see its general shape and an area inside of it?

Credit for the Los Angeles Times piece goes to Javier Zarracina, Raoul Ranoa, Lorena Iniguez, and Anthony Pesce.

The Calderon Connections

I am not terribly familiar with local politics outside of my local areas. So the background and details of this piece escape me. However, this interactive graphic and story from the Los Angeles Times does a really great job of leading the reader through the story.

First, the piece starts with a general overview or flowchart of the network of connections. Mouseovers do a fine job of highlighting and filtering for the appropriate piece. For example, a person shows the entities to which he is connected whereas the entities show the people to which it is connected.

The flow diagram of connections
The flow diagram of connections

Secondly, the piece then goes in detail about the different connections. The example screenshot below shows how each story is highlighted by a red dot as the user scrolls down the page. When that story is highlighted, the network diagram to the left changes, either replacing the contacts or highlighting the contacts specifically noted in the story.

Example of the connections in this story
Example of the connections in this story

As I said at the outset, this is a very nice piece that step-by-step shows and explains how all the connections work while filtering out the momentarily irrelevant data. Very well done.

Credit for the piece goes to Byron Lutz.