Baltimore Can Stack ‘Em Up!
The bar chart below made the cover of the Baltimore Sun newspaper on April 7, 2008. It definitely caught my eye because of its design and my passion for data/info visualization. In the past, I have been a bit unkind to stacked bar charts, as a quick glance through the previous blog posts could quickly confirm. My first impression was that this was going to be another example of what not to do using stacked bar charts.
After taking a closer look, this turns out to be a good example of visualizing data. Sure, it’s no line graph, but this chart is very effective for one fundamental reason. Both series, Annual Homicide Total and First Quarter numbers, have the same baseline - zero. By having both series start at zero, the chart is turned into a simple bar chart with two overlaid series versus a stacked bar chart.
The values for the first quarter numbers are labeled probably because they would be hard to determine due to the scale being high to accommodate for both series. My guess would be that this chart was embellished with a graphic program like, Adobe Illustrator. However, the same results could be done in Excel with a little finagling. The callout boxes are strategically placed to point out the significant figures like lowest, highest, starting and prior year.
Source: Baltimore Sun & Baltimore Police Dept.
The Google map below accompanied the bar chart from above on the Baltimore Sun’s website. Having a vested interest in the Baltimore area, I quickly looked to see where the most homicides were and if there seemed to be a pattern. I love the interactivity of Google maps driven by a set of data!
Source: Data compiled by Sun reporter Gus Sentementes using information from the City of Baltimore. Baltimoresun.com designer Stephen Mekosh produced the Google Map mashup.
For my fellow The Wire (HBO Series) enthusiasts, you can see if the West side has more homicides than the East side thanks to the Marlow and Barksdale crews. I’m sure that Pryzbylewski (a.k.a. “Prez”) and Detective Freamon would love to see these stats pinned to their board.
Most Commented Posts
April 9th, 2008 at 3:27 am
We’re pleased that you noticed Monday’s graphic. We rarely receive feedback from our readers let alone praise! For your information, the graphic was produced in Freehand (could just as well have been illustrator). The original design was a stacked bar chart as it appears here. While flushing it out, it was then re-designed as a line/fever chart which is where I left it two days before it was published. Another artist or editor — or both — clearly brought it back to the original stacked bars. I agree with your observation that in this particular case the bars are superior to the line chart for the simple reason that the relationship of the “annual” and “first quarter” data remains unified — this relationship gets lost to some degree in the line chart. We take great care to design graphics with content driving the way. Sometimes it means breaking standard convention at the risk of fielding critcism, but then we receive feedback like this and it warms our hearts!
I’ll see if we still have the original line/fever chart so you can compare the merits of each design for yourself.
Again, on behalf of the graphics staff, thank you for noticing and taking the time to comment.
Regards,
Lou Spirito
Graphics Director
The Baltimore Sun
April 9th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Lou - It was my pleasure. Too often “we” only receive negative feedback and when possible, I try to break that pattern. Thank you for taking the time to comment here!
I am not too familiar with Freehand, but understand that it may be very similar to Illustrator. I also saw that Adobe Freehand MX is no longer being updated and I think Adobe wants to promote Illustrator instead.
I would like to see the original line/fever chart to compare the merits of both. A line chart definitely would not have had the same affect as this stacked bar chart. I can appreciate the details, lack of chartjunk and excellent design as shown in your visualization.
Keep up the great job!
April 9th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Regarding Freehand, it is identical to Illustrator and is indeed no longer being updated. Adobe purchased Macromedia (the makers of Freehand and their direct competitor) and are now streamlining the products line, hence the demise of Freehand. [Lou Spirito]
April 21st, 2008 at 1:16 am
[...] Recently, I wrote a blog post about the homicide rate in Baltimore and included the second graph below, which can be found here. [...]
October 29th, 2008 at 8:29 am
[...] Baltimore Can Stack ‘Em Up [...]