Fortune's Glorious Infographic Past

At long last, the article I wrote for Print based on my lecture about the amazing infographics Fortune published during the first half (1930-1970) of its 80-year existence.

A number of years ago, I was invited to give a presentation at Malofiej, the Society of News Design's worldwide infographics conference held each year in Pamplona, Spain. At the time, I was Fortune’s graphics editor and had always wanted an excuse to subject myself to going through every issue of the magazine and document its use of charts, diagrams, maps, etc. Talk about falling down the rabbit hole! Of the few hundred images I collected, some 80 went into the presentation, and 18 of those appear in this article.

I still like to imagine that I will do the book one of these days, but size is a real issue. Unlike the early spectacular Fortune covers that are legible even when reproduced as thumbnails (there weren’t even cover-lines in those days), the infographics are often readable only at the original print size. Each page was 11" by 14" in the early days, and many graphics ran as full spreads and with tiny labels. Sumptuous and gorgeous, but not very iPhone-friendly, or even iPad-friendly for that matter. I just can’t see an 8" by 10" format doing justice to the ‘Financial Irrigation of the United States’ (second spread, below), and I’m not sure I can handle being laughed out of the office of any publisher still in business. The research (most of it) is done ...


The body text should be readable when you click on the pages to enlarge.

Worldmapper: On the Grid

You may or may not be familiar with Worldmapper. It's a project that originated from the Social and Spatial Inequalities research group at the University of Sheffield, to create maps where geographic territories can be sized according to a whole assortment of other metrics, like population, literacy, income, etc. The resulting graphics are called cartograms and Worldmapper now offers almost 700 of them. Together they provide a fascinating visualization of global issues.

On a recent visit to the website, I discovered gridded cartograms. A uniform grid is imposed on a geographic territory and then each square is sized according to the value of a particular metric. This gridded mapping creates a way more nuanced representation than the traditional cartogram, which assigns a single value for each country. It also allows for analysis within one territory.

Here are some grid-mapped populations. A country like Italy, say, whose population is rather dense throughout, will look very much like its geographic shape, while Brazil (above), has quite a different story to tell.

What I Didn't Blog This Month

I sometimes find myself not blogging something visually interesting, cool, or even infographics-related, because absolutely every other visual blog has covered it.

Whereas print is a scarcity model of the finite page and limited shelf space (for which everyone competes), the Web is an abundance model. It’s a newsstand that is infinite, and you never run out of ink or paper. In fact, the only way anything gets noticed is by getting attention in lots of places—which in turn generates even more attention, in even more places. So repeated coverage is, in a sense, how the Web/blogosphere works.

My prehistoric brain, however, which was encoded during the “print era”, still turns away--either by habit or reflex--from blogging what everyone else has covered. After all, who needs me to show them what they have surely seen somewhere else.

But I know how we all “miss class” certain days. So for anyone who may have slept through the month of January, here are a few items I didn’t post.

Charting the Beatles
Michael Deal's exhaustive tracking of Beatles songwriting and recording. Very beautiful.



The 2009 Feltron Annual Report
An exhaustive tracking of the events in the life of Nicholas Feltron, by Nicholas Feltron, during 2009. Also very beautiful.
Reports from previous years



iPad ... and The Jokes
See more at Jezebel.

A Counterintuitive Counterinsurgency

Looks like we’ve now outsourced and offshored our counterinsurgency strategy.

The diagram here, outlines the Afghanistan counterinsurgency strategy. It was obtained by MSNBC's Richard Engel, and aired on The Rachel Maddow Show. Labeled a ‘working draft’, the slide is branded with the logo of PA Consulting Group, a UK-based firm.

The company made news in 2008, when it lost a memory stick containing data on the entire UK prison population of about 84,000. PA Consulting has worked successfully with the U.S. Navy on cost-cutting privatization initiatives.

You can see the full PDF here for an in-depth look at what we must surely be paying big bucks for.

What Does One Million Look Like?

So, you know the 2000 years that happened before the current millennium began? Well if you go back those 2 millennia, and then do that 499 more times, you’ll get to the year this Raquel Welch classic takes place.

Designers of information graphics often find themselves in the position of explaining large numbers. At the recent Society of News Design conference in Buenos Aires, I had the magnitude of numbers like million, billion and trillion conveyed to me by no less than three different infographics gurus. Nigel Holmes of Explanation Graphics was the keynote speaker and is the undisputed master of explaining magnitudes of time, space, and dollars. To check out his short animation from 2000 explaining the then $5.7 trillion national debt, go here and click on the first clip.


Keep in mind that $5.7 trillion is barely half of the $11.9 trillion outstanding today. So watch it twice. Then watch the others for more great explanations.



Later that week, I found this Argentine banknote at the San Telmo market. I recognized it immediately--I knew what one million looked like. But not so fast. You see, It was issued between 1981-1983 during Argentina’s hyperinflation days. it’s out of circulation now, and has nothing to do with the 20 pesos (roughly $5) I paid for it. In fact, it didn’t even have much to do with itself over the 13-year period that particular peso-unit was in use. When Argentina introduced a new monetary unit in 1983, The New York Times put it this way: “In 1970 a new, four-door automobile cost 20,000 pesos. Today, 20,000 old pesos would purchase two sticks of chewing gum; the new car costs 993 million.” Yikes, now that’s inflation.

So, I might know what one million looks like, but what it means? Well let's just say that it all depends.