New report by EMCDDA and EUROPOL “Drugs and the darknet”. The report presents how darknet markets function, the threats they pose to health and security and how Europe can respond.
I recently had the opportunity to work again with Corinne Le Quere of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research on updating an important graphic on the global carbon budget.
I worked on this last year and it was proposed to update the graphic to keep with the original style. Updating the data and storytelling between the signing of the Paris agreement last year and the Marrakesh plan of action this year. The graphic was launched at the Marrakesh COP22 conference on climate change.
I have just ventured into the loft of our house (not been up there for ages) and discovered a couple of my old portfolios covered in dust, and so decided to have a look…it brings back many great memories.
I trained as a medical, botanical and scientific illustrator and because of my background I often talk about the importance of sketching ideas and thoughts before diving into any infographic and, I suppose, this is one of the reasons that I think this way.
but thought I should back it up with some more very early infographics and illustrations. All hand painted watercolours and pencil work and some using the trusty Rotring pens and CS10 paper.
Poster: A Guide to Lawn Weeds. Watercolour
Detail of Daisy. Watercolour
Dragonfly nymph. Pencil
Skull of toothed Whales. Rotring Pen
I may add more as I find them and if I think they are worth posting
Thanks
Once again I have just managed to get my hands on the latest SciAm issue for August.
Jen Christensen (Senior Graphics Editor) commissioned me to produce a couple of charts for the feature ‘Health check for Humanity’ looking at cancer rates and chronic kidney disease int he developing world. Pleased to see them in print and to be amongst other great illustrations and graphics.
It’s always good to see innovation when it comes to data visualisation and infographics. We never stop learning and therefore looking and seeing what others are doing is a great way to learn and improve out own standards.
We should all be looking at what others are doing from all over the world every day. We can gain insights into how styles are changing and what the thought processes of others in the field are by looking at what has been done. I find it’s also good to wonder how I would have done anything differently to help me understand it better or easier.
This is one from last week posted by Ipsos MORI looking at the reactions to Brexit across Europe as well as a few other countries outside of the EU.
Nothing fundamentally wrong with the graphic. I could see that, as the header says, Spain is top when looking at whether they thought the decision was wrong or right for Britain. But looking more closely, and especially trying to compare those who thought it wrong to those who thought it was right, I found it hard to work out, because of the use of the stacked chart.
I wasn’t the only one who was thinking along these lines – a couple of us had a discussion about this on twitter!
I also felt the dark grey was rather off-putting as the colours used were of similar intensity.
So I had a go at it myself to see if I could make it easier for me to compare wrong with right.
I haven’t included all the numbers but I have put the ‘Don’t knows’ in the middle of the ‘Wrong’ and the ‘Right’. This allows me to see, more easily, the proportion who think it was the wrong decision AND the proportion who think it was the right decision. Making it easy to compare the two figures and therefore the majority decision. I also made the grey “Don’t know’ a lighter, less intrusive, grey colour to make the separation easier to see.
The text that accompanied the tweet was ‘Was Brexit right or wrong for Britain? Only majority of Russians say right’ , which is fine, but it’s difficult to see that in the original, whereas my version makes it clearer that Russia is the only country that has a majority that thought it was the right decision
There are other ways of showing the data as there are in many instances, such as this but this version excludes the ‘Don’t know’ data
We can all learn and so re-imagining or adjusting works by others is a great way of learning. I advise you all to go and have a try. Many thanks to ipsosMori for ‘supplying’ this one for me.
What do you think?
Added 10 August. Hannah Williams Ipsos MORI’s Creative Director and I discussed this yesterday after which, I have to add (and agree with her, here) that as with most polling questions, the ‘Don’t know’s are as important as the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ or Yes and No’s. So my second attempt is really not relevant.
As with all stacked bars charts, actually trying to compare a specific element across a range of categories, will always be a compromised because of the stacking of the bars.
I am working with the good folks at the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) on some of the graphics across their wide range of publications in print and online.
To coincide with the publication I produced a graphic for the publication online showing the different routes used by the tagged Cuckoos on their way to Africa and back.
For sharing on social media we also produced an animated gif showing the same information. This was produced to be readable on a mobile screen and a useful thing to do for promotional purposes. The animation doesn’t work here so please look at pic.twitter.com/Fkj2dEP1lC
Yesterday, the EMCDDA (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction) launched its latest report, the European Drug Report 2016: trends and developments in Europe’s drug situation (download here)
I have been working with the teams in Lisbon, looking at the visual design and graphics included in the report, especially how we can improve the storytelling aspect, giving the data more of a focus and appeal to the reader, both policy makers across the EU and the public.
It’s a comprehensive and fascinating report, looking at health risks of high-potency products, the emergence of new substances, and changing patterns of drug use.
As well as the report, they also have online sections, focusing on specific drugs, such as Cocaine trafficking routes and the cannabis market as well as a study on wastewater analysis
