Politics | Maga Design Group

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January 18, Internet Blackout Day?

Today, Wednesday January 18, 2012 marks an important day in American legislation. Today, the Web is demonstrating its dynamic power through coordinated resistance against two American bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). So what is at the heart of these two bills—one in the House and the other in the Senate, respectively—that could prompt such determined defiance? The infographic displayed on Google’s ‘take action’ site illustrates that the concern is clearly not over the foreign piracy that the bills seek to shutdown; rather, the slippery slope of censorship it would induce.

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Visualizing our tax dollars at work

Visualization can make even the most boring, painful, lackluster information look interesting. Jess Bachman has created a fact-based representation of the federal budget for 2011, focusing on the programs that receive 200M+ and the discretionary budget (essentially dollars spent with contractors as opposed to those that go toward government employee salaries and things like medicare). Continue Reading →

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5/1/11 Twitter Traffic

On the evening of President Obama’s announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed, Twitter traffic went off the charts. First, newspapers emailed news alerts announcing that the president was making a speech about a topic of “an undisclosed nature”, which catapulted the speculation of the blogosphere. Continue Reading →

Map O’ The Day #198 – How Our Laws Are Made

Today’s MOTD is an infographic in the style of a gameboard, one of the many wireframes that Maga Design uses for its own maps. Designer Mike Wirth laid out the process from left to right and has included all of the steps that it takes for a bill to be turned into law.

Map O’ The Day #164 – Inevitable Capitalist Agenda

This awesome graphic assists one in understanding the two sides of the political spectrum, through an USA-centric viewpoint. I enjoy the flow between family and adults (parental type), as it adheres to a lot of work done by liberal writer George Lakoff. While some basic stereotypical language and views are presented here, the political philosophy, to this double-major in the respective areas, seems to be pretty spot-on, with very few exaggerations or misstatements.

Overall I thought this was very clean design, using some nice curved shapes to break up the boxiness / banner format that was chosen. And more kudos to the sihouetted simple four-color scheme.

This superb infographic hails from the new infographic book of visual exploria: The Visual Miscellaneum. Creative credit here goes to David McCandless & Stefanie Posavec.

Map O’ The Day #100 – Iranian Political System

MOTD hits the century mark today with an infographic depicting the Iranian Political System. Amidst all of the turmoil in that country around an contested election, this provides the laymen a helpful context for understanding the news coverage that’s being blasted through all mediums of info. dispersion.

Provided by the National Democratic Institute, this simple black and white organizational chart is an easy to comprehend view on a somewhat messy political system.

What I found interesting about this graphic was it’s use of a principle often found in the art medium known as Comics. As professed by renowned cartoonist and theorist on comics, Scott McCloud, there is an ever-present opportunity to amplify key messaging through simplification. In other words, emphasis through subtraction.

This is one of many comic based principles that has relevance in the world of information design and information graphics.

If you take a look at the graphic, you’ll notice that the Supreme Leader and President not only are sized larger than any other entity, but are also the only elements not portrayed by silhouette. This, I propose, speaks to the disproportionate amount of power and influence held by two individuals in contrast to all other entities within the political system. Political value judgments aside, it isn’t hard to ascertain the focus of the infographic, especially due to the fact that the designer has utilized a ‘McCloudian’ principle of amplification through simplification.

Map O’ The Day #57 – NASCAR Candidates

With information sourced from www.opensecrets.org and illustration drawn by Serifcan Ozcan, the 57th MOTD focuses on what BHO and JMAC’s suits would look like if they were NASCAR drivers.

Each company logo is categorized by at the legend industry type, which can be referenced at the legend. {top right}

I found the relational design vehicle to be a compelling method for expressing intended meaning.

The only criticism I’d levy against this is the lumping of FedEX and MoveOn.org into the same “misc. Business categories” as one is a commercial logistics operator, and the other is a partisan political organization.

Regardless, it’s a creative way to drive home an unglamorous perspective on American political candidates.

Map O’ The Day #52 – Obama Campaign Poster

Today’s MOTD is a Obama campaign poster, designed by Aaron Allen, the creative director @ Wieden+Kennedy. It is titled Unite The States of America, and is an interesting use of a Venn Diagram as a vehicle for messaging. Obviously, we all know what a Venn Diagram is used for, but one would not have thought to use the actual design to further the message’s impact — very clever.

I found this to be a particularly interesting “vision graphic”, a tool that Maga employs in everyone of it’s maps.

Map O’ The Day #50 – How China Sees The World

The fiftieth installment of MOTD hails from the cover of my favorite periodical, The Economist, March 21-27, 2009 edition, and is illustrated by artist Jon Berkeley.

In light of instability in the global market, the information presented within the graphics is both topical and foreboding. And while the central theme of the graphic is, as the title aptly states, a Chinese perspective towards the world, this issue is not the driving cause for anointing this image as the 50th MOTD.

Rather, what struck me about this graphic, was that it is basically constructed of a basic landscape architecture and a few well placed labels, and yet, it’s chockfull of information pertaining to foreign policy, international conflicts, and economic woes. What the artist has accomplished with this work is a fairly comprehensive high level snapshot of China’s decision-making environment, through a masterful use of four central tenets of information mapping: Representation, Sizing, Placement and Selection.

With those four lenses, take the time to re-examine the image, and you’ll quickly realize the sheer breadth of information a information graphic conveys when attention to principle is upheld.

Map O’ The Day #21 – Japanese View Of America

This map is basically what would happen if you got a bunch of Japanese guys in a room, got them drunk, and then asked them to draw what they could remember about America on a bar napkin.

Some funny things of note:
- Alaska is an island, including the fictional city of Ice Palace.
- Montana is located oceanside, under Seattle, which apparently has a thing with cats.
- Portland and Lake Tahoe are near the supersized San Francisco Bay, which contains an equally inflated Alcatraz.
- San Fran itself is placed on the wrong side of its bay.
- Los Angeles (under the sign still reading ‘Hollywoodland’) is just north of Arizona; close by are the cities of Las
Vegas, Tombstone, Phoenix and Carlsbad Caverns.
- So great they named it twice: another Carlsbad Caverns appears near El Paso, which is separated from Houston
by a large bay, near which can also be found the (Mexican) cities of Oaxaca and Mexico City.
- The north (labeled ‘Minnesota’) is dominated by St Paul, Minneapolis, Yellowstone and Chicago, which boasts an enormous skyscraper (probably but not recognizably the Sears Tower).
- The northwestern peninsula of America is called Michigan, and counts two major cities: Detroit and Indianapolis.
- New Jersey apparently is a hole in the ground, while New York is located on an island way off the mainland.
- New Orleans is placed about right, Atlanta is too far south (and south of Florida).
- The centre of the country is dominated by the gigantic monument of Mount Rushmore, not far from the town of Missouri. To the south, apparently surrounded by desert, is the city of Dallas.
- Oh yes, and there is no Canada! Makes one wonder where that waterfall on America’s northeastern peninsula
comes from.

Map O’ The Day #19 – 2008 Presidential Voting vs. 1800′s Cotton Production

The top map is voting patterns in this 2008 election– the bottom map is cotton production in 1860.

Map O’ The Day #12 – 2004 Electorial Map

Disclaimer: This is not a political statement of any kind, it’s simply a refresher of how that country voted last election.

Good reference for those of you planning to be peeled to the TV this evening.