Running Up the Debt

I was reading the paper this morning and stumbled across this graphic in a New York Times article that focused on the increasing importance of debt payments.

Those interest payment lines are headed in the wrong direction.
Those interest payment lines are headed in the wrong direction.

The story is incredibly important and goes to show why the tax cuts passed by the administration are fiscally reckless. But the graphic is really smart too. After all, it is designed to work in a single colour.

Credit for the piece goes to the New York Times graphics department.

Big Bulls

Last Thursday, the US entered its longest bull market in history. And the New York Times covered the story on the front page, which makes this another episode of covering graphics when they land on the Times’ front page. Of course, last week was a big news week away from the economy and so it is no surprise that the above-the-fold coverage was on the scandals besetting the president and those of his team who have pleaded guilty or been convicted of crimes by juries.

The front page design
The front page design

But you will note that below the fold is that nice little graphic. Here we see it in more detail.

Bull runs
Bull runs

What I like about the graphic is how it uses the blue fill to draw attention to the bull markets but then also labels how long each was. Those keen on the story will note there is a debate whether a particular 19.9% drop qualifies for the 20% drop usually used to benchmark the beginning and ending of a bull market. That is why there is that second label with the black arrows on the graphic.

It also uses the negative space created by the shape of the graphic to contain its title, text, and caption information.

Credit for the piece goes to Karl Russell.

Apple Hits One Trillion

Last Tuesday we looked at a print piece from the New York Times detailing the share price plunge of Facebook after the company revealed how recent scandals and negative news impacted its financials. Well, today we have a piece from last week that shows how large Apple is after it hit a market capitalisation of one trillion US dollars.

The piece itself is not big on the data visualisation, but it functions much like the Facebook piece, as a blend of editorial design and data visualisation. The graphic falls entirely above the fold and combines a factette and maybe we could classify it as a deconstructed tree map. It uses squares where, presumably, the area equates to the company’s value. And the sum total of those squares equals that of one trillion dollars, or the value of Apple.

Looking at the full page
Looking at the full page

In terms of design it does it well. The factette is large enough to just about stretch across the width of the page and so matches the graphic below it in its array of colours. Why the colours? I believe these are purely aesthetic. After all, it is unclear to me just what Ford, Hasbro, and General Mills all have in common. In a more straight data visualisation piece, we might see colour used to classify companies by industry, by growth in share price or market share. Here, however, colour functions in the editorial space to grab the reader’s attention.

The design also makes use of white space surrounding the text, much like the Facebook piece last week, to quiet the overall space above the fold and focus the reader’s attention on the story. Note that the usual layout of stories on the page continues, but only after the fold.

When we keep in mind the function of the piece, i.e. it is not a straight-up-explore-the-data type of piece, we can appreciate how well it functions. All in all this was a really nice treat last Friday morning.

Credit for the piece goes to Karl Russell and Jon Huang.

Where Syria Struck with Chemical Weapons

Friday night the US, UK, and France struck targets in Syria that play a role in the chemical weapons programme of the Bashir al-Assad regime. This is despite “eliminating” his chemical weapons several years ago. And so not surprisingly the media this past weekend covered Syria and the airstrikes. This print piece from the New York Times, however, looked backwards at the history of the chemical attacks Syria has unleashed against its own people.

Note the timeline in the lower-right to provide context of when and how frequent the chemical attacks have been
Note the timeline in the lower-right to provide context of when and how frequent the chemical attacks have been

The map is straightforward and the timeline helpful. Though I would probably have added a point on the timeline highlighting the Ghouta attack of August 2013. That attack prompted the international community to pressure the Assad regime to, again, “eliminate” its chemical weapon stocks. Clearly it hid some sarin and chlorine gas has industrial uses, making it a classic dual-purpose object that is tricky to classify as a weapon. (Though using it against civilians is clearly a weaponised use of the element.)

On a side note, I wanted to point the editorial design here. The overall page is quite nice.

The whole article is well laid out
The whole article is well laid out

The map falls squarely within the middle of the article, with a nice gallery of photographs running along the top. It also features a devastating pull quote describing the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons. The article fits almost entirely above not just the fold, but also another terrible line of text, in this case the title of another article: Officials Have Lost Count of How Many Thousands Have Died in Syria’s War.

Overall, this was a solid piece providing a backdrop and historical context for the news.

Credit for the piece goes to the New York Times graphics department.

How to Choose the Match to Broadcast

I was reading the Sunday paper yesterday and whilst I normally skip the sports section, especially during baseball’s offseason, this time a brightly coloured map caught my attention. Of course then I had to read the article, but I am glad that I did.

On Sunday the New York Times ran a print piece—I mean I assume I can find it online (I did.)—about CBS chooses which American football matches to air in the country’s markets. It is a wee bit complicated. And if you can find it, you should read it. The process is fascinating.

But I want to quickly talk about the design of the thing. Remember how I said a map caught my attention. That was pretty important, because the map was not the largest part of the article. Instead that went to a nice big photo. But the information designer I am, well, my eyes went straight to the map below that.

The story dominated the section page
The story dominated the section page

There is nothing too special about the map in particular. It is a choropleth where media markets are coloured by the game being aired yesterday. (The piece explains the blackout rules that changed a few years ago from what I remember growing up.)

But then on the inside, the article takes up another page, this time fully. It runs maps down the side to highlight the matches and scenarios the author discusses, reusing the same map as above, but because this is an interior page, in black and white. It probably looks even better online as they likely kept the colour. (They did. But the maps are smaller.)

To have that much space in which to design an article…
To have that much space in which to design an article…

Overall, I really enjoyed the piece and the maps and visuals not only drew me into the piece, but helped contextualise the story.

Credit for the piece goes to Kevin Draper.

The Cassidy-Graham Healthcare Bill

I meant to post this yesterday, but accidentally saved it as a draft. So let’s try this again.

Yesterday the New York Times published a print piece that explored how the Cassidy-Graham bill would change the healthcare system. This would, of course, be another attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare. And like previous efforts, this bill would do real damage to the aim of covering individuals. We know the dollar amounts in terms of changes to aid given to states, but in terms of the numbers of people likely to lose their coverage, that would have to wait for a CBO score.

Hyperlinked to the online version of the article
Hyperlinked to the online version of the article

The graphic makes really nice use of the tall vertical space afforded by two columns. (You can kind of see this too in the online version of the article.) At the beginning of the article, above the title even, are two maps that locate the states with the biggest funding gains and cuts. I wonder if the two maps could have been combined into one or if a small table, like in the online version, would have worked better. The map does not read well in the print version as the non-highlighted states are very faint.

The designer chose to repeatedly use the same chart, but highlight different states based on different conditions. This makes the small multiples that appear below the big version useful despite their small size. Any question about the particular length can be referenced in the big chart at the top.

With the exception of the maps at the top of the piece, this was a great piece that used its space on the page very well.

Credit for the piece goes to Haeyoun Park.

North Korea’s Latest Missile Test

If you missed it—and these days that is entirely possible—over the weekend, North Korea tested yet another missile. It did land very far away as it fell just off the coast of North Korea near Russia.

But it did travel far enough away to be of concern. Why? Well, this print graphic from the New York Times does a great job showing what that missile test really tested.

Creeping towards the West Coast
Creeping towards the West Coast

I want to end on a geography lesson for Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Those little dots in the upper right part of the circle? Those are the Aleutian Islands. They are like that island in the Pacific known as Oahu, which is part of the state of Hawaii. The Aleutians are part of the state of Alaska, which is, you know, one of the 50 states. Just trying to help you out, sir. So if you ask why we care about defending those islands in the Pacific, well now you know.

Credit for the piece goes to the New York Times graphics department.

Comey Contradictions

Last week was crazy, am I right? But one thing that made complete sense was President Trump’s rationale for firing FBI Director James Comey.

And to prove just how much of a logical, straight-line reasoning there was we have this graphic from Sunday’s edition of the New York Times.

The complete graphic.
The complete graphic.

Okay, so maybe that is not quite such a straight line.

I want to excerpt the bottom half because it clearly shows the contradictions—the top half merely establishes the statements to be contradicted.

Yep. It's all very clear.
Yep. It’s all very clear.

I particularly like the use of the blue lines and bold set type to distinguish from the linear narrative of the administration. But what makes it work are the concisely written blurbs that detail just what the contradiction was.

Credit for the piece goes to Alicia Parlapiano, Stuart A. Thompson, and Wilson Andrews.

The Russians Are Coming

I mean, they’re already here…we will return to that shortly.

I hope you enjoyed your three-day weekend, but this is a busy week, folks. Most importantly we have Thursday’s by-elections in Copeland and Stoke-on-Trent, those are in the UK for my American audience, where we will see just how crazy British politics gets post-Brexit referendum.

But today is Tuesday, and in a slight departure from the normal, as a new subscriber to the failing New York Times, I was pleasantly surprised to see this cover waiting for me Sunday.

In Soviet Russia, newspaper reads you…
In Soviet Russia, newspaper reads you…

Quite a nice use of the Russian constructivist language going on. I’m not accustomed to seeing newspaper copy set on an angle.

Credit for the piece goes to the New York Times graphics department.

Black and White Maps

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 found the online (and full-colour) version of the graphic. Because I no longer have the paper on me, I took the image and then discarded the colour information to simulate the effect.

Comparing colour to black-and-white, link to the colour version
Comparing colour to black-and-white, link to the colour version

One must always beware of the ultimate use of their designed work, be it an infographic or something else entirely. If one designs for digital, online display, he or she can rest relatively assured that colour will be available for their piece. However, in a black and white print environment, the colour here in a divergent palette fails to communicate the split between increases and decreases in aquifer levels. I would have expected a different palette or the use of patterns for the print version of this story.

Credit for the piece goes to the New York Times Graphics Department