A concept-map exploring the Left vs Right political spectrum. A collaboration between David McCandless and information artist Stefanie Posavec, taken from my book The Visual Miscellaneum (out Nov 10th).

Of course, the political spectrum is not quite so polarised. Actually, it’s more of a diamond shape, apparently. But this is how it’s mostly presented via the media – left wing vs. right wing, liberal vs. conservative, Labour vs Tory. And perhaps in our minds too…

Well, certainly in my mind. Researching this showed me that, despite my inevitable journalistic lean to the ‘left’, I am actually a bit more ‘right’ than I suspected.

This kind of visual approach to mapping concepts really excites me. I like the way it coaxes me to entertain two apparently contradictory value systems at the same time. Or, in other words, I like the way it f**ks with my head.

I’ve got a few more of these coming from my book. They do a similar act of mind-flossing. Stay tuned.

Oh and if there’s enough demand, we’re going to do a signed, limited edition poster run of this image before Christmas. Email informationisbeautiful [at] gmail [dot] com if you’re interested

design notes

The original design concept was “something like a rosette”. But Stefanie did an amazing job taking it way further.

(I’ll be doing a ‘Great Visualizers’ piece on her in the future. But you can see some of her work here: itsbeenreal.co.uk. My particular favourite are her literary organisms. Truly beautiful and very informational. Yum.)

There are two versions with different colours: a US and a World version. This is because the US and Switzerland are the only countries in the world where red = right wing and blue = left wing. Grrr!