It’s cherry blossom time in Washington. So the Washington Post has a nice piece—appropriately coloured—looking at where the different varietals are within and near the Tidal Basin.
Credit for the piece goes to Emily Chow and Dakota Fine.
Trump won Arizona last night. And that is a big deal, despite losing Utah. He was never expected to win Utah. And while he Arizona was expected, the magnitude of his victory there was…big. If you replicate even something close to that in a demographically similar state like California, he can rack up some big delegate numbers.
But the big story these days is the anti-Trump movement, largely centred upon either Ted Cruz or tactical, state-by-state voting to force a contested convention (which as a political nerd would be just fantastic). Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, however, wrote an article that I largely agree with that a Trump nomination might actually give the Republicans a better shot at the White House than Ted Cruz. The whole article is worth a read.
Credit for the piece goes to Chris Cillizza.
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.
Credit for the piece goes to Ella Koeze.
Well today is Friday, so let’s leave the politics of this week behind and just enjoy the great United States of America.
Wait a minute…
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
On Tuesday I tracked the results primarily with the New York Times and the Washington Post. I really enjoyed the Post’s coverage as they designed a homepage for the night’s results. The results were placed at the centre of the content, as you can see in the screenshot below. Below the map and table, content updated on the right with links to more static content on the left.
The map and table above naturally updated throughout the course of evening. I found their decision to move states from one table to the other when the race was declared a brilliant little decision. When reinforced with a small checkmark, the movement from the lower table to the final table at the top gave a real sense of progress—maybe momentum—to the victories of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Overall, this was a very helpful site for me to follow the results streaming in Tuesday night.
Credit for the piece goes to the Washington Post graphics department.
Super Tuesday is the first test of an American presidential candidate’s ability to run—and win—a semi-national campaign. Unlike the one-off primaries or caucuses in places like Iowa or New Hampshire, for today, each candidate has had to prepare for votes in 11 states. And these states are as varied as Alabama to Texas to Massachusetts to Alaska. Consequently, Super Tuesday also means lots of delegates are at stake.
So before the results are announced, let’s look at Bloomberg Politic’s piece that is basically a delegate counter with explanations. (Because right now super-delegates are not at stake.) In the interactive graphic side, we have a counter for every pledged delegate.
I think in the big box up top, the only missing element is some visual measure of just how far each candidate remains from the magic number. In the Republican case, that is 1237 delegates. Below that, however, I really love the tiles that summarise the individual state results, both in delegates and vote share. (After all, some states are entirely proportional, some semi-proportional, and some none-at-all/winner-take-all.)
Credit for the piece goes to Alex Tribou and Jeremy Scott Diamond.
We hear ever more about the Zika virus that currently plagues South America. But the fact is that the mosquito that carries it could inhabit some regions of the United States as well as the South American tropics. Over at the Daily Viz, there was an article about just what the potential numbers could be.
The piece is a nice reminder that not every important story needs a super-complicated graphic. It just needs a clean, clear, and concise graphic. The threat here is to parts of the American south. But, as yesterday’s post showed, ever more people are moving there and so that puts roughly 80 million Americans in harm’s way.
Also, another validation of my dislike of warm weather.
Credit for the piece goes to Matt Stiles.
When I was over in London and Dublin, most days were cool and grey. And a little bit rainy. Not very warm. (Though warmer than Chicago.) But, that is weather—highly variable on a daily basis. Climate is longer-term trends and averages. Years, again, can be highly variable—here’s looking at you kid/El Niño. But, even in that variability, 2015 was the warmest year on record. So the New York Times put together a nice interactive piece allowing the user to explorer data for available cities in terms of temperature and precipitation.
You can see the big chart is temperature with monthly, cumulative totals of precipitation. (I use Celsius, but you can easily toggle to Fahrenheit.) Above the chart is the total departure of the yearly average. Anyway, I took screenshots of Philadelphia and Chicago. Go to the New York Times to check out your local cities.
Credit for the piece goes to K.K. Rebecca Lai and Gregor Aisch.
Sorry for the two-week absence, everybody. I travelled to the UK for work and then stayed there and Ireland on holiday. But I have returned, but with the inevitable jet lag waking me up early this morning, I had no reason not to post something.
Late last year, the Washington Post published a small article examining trends in US migration data. The crux of the article? During the recession, people stopped moving from the Northeast and Midwest to the Sunbelt. (I was a rare exception heading from the Northeast to the Midwest.) But, now that the economy is not so sluggish, that movement of people has resumed. Naturally, there are charts to go alongside it.
I selected the above because while generally fine, I quibble with one design decision. In the locator map in the upper right, take the South, which is coloured dark green for a winner in the game of migration. However, in another map earlier in the piece, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana are all losing people. I likely would have left the white states lines off the map. Or reused the same earlier map, but with a thicker stroke to indicate the US Census Bureau regions.
Credit for the piece goes to Darla Cameron.
Today we look at a really nice piece from the Washington Post on urban homicide. It combines big, full-width images that use interactivity to promote exploration of data. But as you can see in the screenshot below, the designers took care to highlight a few key stories. Just in case the reader does not want to take the time to explore the data set.
But the piece uses scale to provide contrast throughout the article. Because in addition to the three or four big graphics, a similarly well-thought-out and well-designed approach was taken towards smaller, inline supplemental graphics. Here is an example about the homicide rate for New York.
What I really enjoy about these small graphics is the attention paid to highlighting New York against the background averages provided for context. Note how the orange line for the city breaks the grey lines. It is a very nice detail.
Overall, this is a really strong piece marrying written content and data visualisation.
Credit for the piece goes to Denise Lu.
