amy o'kruk

CNN’s guide to the most important elections of 2026 | CNN Politics This year’s midterms will serve as a referendum on the first two years of President Donald Trump’s second term and will shape his final two years in office.

www.cnn.com/2026/01/09/p...

i like this graphic b/c:
- it keeps the visual language of a calendar but drops dates/months that aren't important
- super easy to see key primaries
- IF the reader wants a little more context, the color key notes if it's a senate or gov. race that we expect to be competitive/interesting

This 2026 US election calendar graphic is showing a horizontal calendar-style timeline of primary election dates from March through September, with the general election on Nov. 3. Each date row shows the states holding primaries, with dark purple boxes highlighting "primaries to watch," and small green dots marking competitive Senate races and orange dots marking competitive governor races.

new graphic from me: 2026 election calendar 🗓️

i'm happy with how this turned out! i iterated a lot over the design trying trying to make a complicated election season readable at a glance

why i think it works... �

An illustration in an isometric style showing a day in the life of a USPS postwoman. The overall composition shows a city streetscape, with each individual stamp representing a small but visually compelling fragment.

Chris Ware's new design for USPS is so good?? love the overall isometric illustration of a postwoman's day and how thoughtfully composed each stamp is

GitHub - stiles/ezesri: A lightweight Python package for extracting data from Esri REST API endpoints. A lightweight Python package for extracting data from Esri REST API endpoints. - stiles/ezesri

ever come across ESRI data and struggle to extract it?? my brilliant colleage @stiles.bsky.social created a super useful tool to help! github.com/stiles/ezesri

i think so - thanks so much for flagging that Peter!

Conclave: A visual guide to the secretive process of choosing a new pope | CNN The process of picking a new pope is filled with ancient rituals like a secret ballot and locked doors. See a visual guide to conclave.

Love this explainer of how conclave works edition.cnn.com/2025/04/28/w...

so thrilled to be a part of this!

How do animals sound across languages? Analyzing animal onomatopoeia across languages can demystify how we shape sound into meaning.

I LOVE this piece on animal sounds across languages.

pudding.cool/2025/03/lang...

how to save stuff on the internet? short, sweet & useful zine on diy web archiving by @bitarchivist.net @ilya.webrecorder.net @quinnanya.me @akijas.bsky.social @literaturegeek.bsky.social ✨💾🐢 zinebakery.com/homemade-zin... #webarchiving

Detailed diagram of Android Rendering, going from UI definition all the way to the display, with drawings of each stage

💥 I did an explainer about how Android rendering works!

This is part of a series on rendering, I’ll be showing how each platform renders so that people can learn and compare/contrast

Map of flight paths around the Los Angeles fires. Flight paths are indicated by red lines, roads by gray lines, forested areas with muted green, and active fires with dark gray dots. The map is accented by hill shading.

Annotated graphs of altitude and flight times for observation aircraft and tankers, showing coordination of the fleet.

Hand-drawn illustration showing how helicopters and aircraft are used to dump water and flame retardant to help fight wildfires.

High-resolution color satellite image showing red flame retardant laid in front of an advancing fire with copious smoke.

The graphics in this @reuters.com article on air tankers battling the fires in LA are astonishingly good.

www.reuters.com/graphics/CAL...

via @interactives.bsky.social

Love the use of overhead isometric 3D in this @washingtonpost.com article, which shows how the "wind tunnel" effect of gaps in the mountains results in gusts of hot, dry air that increase the severity and spread of fires in the region.

www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025...

fascinating - really enjoyed reading about your process. hope i can dream something up with bauble!

no thank *you* - it's hard to come by great examples of arc diagrams! :)

Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country Each year, US cities give thousands of homeless people one-way bus tickets out of town. An 18-month nationwide investigation by the Guardian reveals, for the first time, what really happens at journey...

arc diagrams bring this Guardian story to mind!
www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Visualizing the Los Angeles wildfires in maps and charts | CNN A series of life-threatening fires, the largest of which is in the Pacific Palisades, are destroying homes as they race across Los Angeles County and surrounding areas. CNN is tracking the fires in ma...

fantastic reporting and context in this visual explainer by the CNN data & graphics team:
www.cnn.com/2025/01/08/u...

Chart headline: Exceptional rain followed by drought gave way to more vegetation, setting the scene for LA wildfires Chart subhead: The flip from extremely wet to dry set the stage for the Los Angeles-area wildfires. These moments of so-called weather whiplash are becoming more frequent and more impactful as the planet warms. Chart title: Monthly precipitation in 2024 recorded at UCLA weather station Chart description: Chart shows unusually high precipitation recorded in February at 19.3 inches, far above the 4.6-inch norm for the month. From April onward, very little rain is recorded throughout the year, despite wet season typically beginning in October. Chart source: Source: National Weather Service and National Centers for Environmental Information (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

🚨 NEW: Exceptional rain followed by drought set the scene for LA wildfires

New chart showing how abnormal precipitation patterns last year are contributing to the intensity of the LA fires. While wet season was supposed to begin in Oct, virtually no rain was recorded in the final months of 2024.

Detailed scientific drawing of a coiled, red and black Helicops abacurus (mud snake).

Detailed color scientific illustration of Glossina morsitans (a species of tsetse fly).

Detailed illustration of a spumella et nassellaria (zooplankton) with rose-colored highlights in the center.

Impressionistic and minimalist illustration of berries or flowers from Banshō zukan.

I stumbled on the collection of the Smithsonian’s Biodiversity Heritage Library yesterday, and am completely blown away by some of these illustrations.

www.biodiversitylibrary.org

📊 #dataviz

comic-book-style illustrations can work really well in an investigative feature to make something kinda complex a lot more approachable and engaging (great example here from Propublica/The Connecticut Mirror showing how the Connecticut DMV can sell people's cars after 15 days)

2025 Comics Criticism Mini Grant This project will be awarding four mini grants of $250 to comics critics. To apply, please provide 3 links to comics criticism work of at least 500 words published in the last year (blogs and Youtube ...

Happy New Year, pals.

It's time for the (hopefully annual) comic critics mini grant.

My family and I are giving four mini grants of $250 to comics critics.

Apply here:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

patio furniture is haphazardly covered by a tarp dubiously secured by zip ties, protecting it from a minuscule amount of snow

i’m brimming with satisfaction every year i remember to cover my patio furniture

A paltry layer of wet snow coats a New York street. It still slaps though

it’s not much in nyc, but it warms the cockles of my canadian heart

absolutely love this effort to show the impact of NYC congestion pricing using real time data!

A comic page titled: "Crossed Wires Layer 01" featuring several abstract panels. The largest is of a human figure with glasses and large twined wires emerging tangled from their head. A caption reads: "personality disorder, borderline, avoidant." Next to it are panels of bonsai trees, a figure standing on a pier, and personal belongings lined up neatly. At the bottom are two panels; the first is of two separate hands with a disconnected thread tied to their pinkies. The second has a human figure with glasses crying. The caption reads: "mute, block, remove, report."

A digital comic page with 9 panels with the following imagery: a pair of feet standing in shallow water, a figure in a windy field, an eroded carving of the Buddha, a two-story house, a human figure with glasses and plant growth, several abstract blobs of light, a pair of hands clasped in soto zen posture, a vague abstract of flesh, and a small flowing plant. The last panel on the bottom reads: "People with Borderline traits tend to lack a sense of emotional permanence. They believe, with all their hearts, that they will always be abandoned one day, and they will wait, with the vigilance and the discipline of the chronically wounded, for the signs that they should excise themselves from the situation immediately. Not because they doubt your love for them, but because they believe in the intense and unalienable truth that they are in fact unlovable."

A digitally inked comic page with four panels. The first panel shows a roiling black sea, the second and third show a nautilus shell, from both the outer side and the inner "empty" side. The last shows a desolate ocean floor, devoid of life. The captions read: "It is much easier for us to cope with binaries. One day I loved this person, the next day, my love is gone, as if it were never there to begin with."

A digitally inked comic page with four rectangular panels. The first panel is a pair of hands overlaid over a second pair of ghostly shadow hands. The second panel shows stylized human figures linked in a circular dance formation. The third panel shows a hand lighting a piece of paper, the flame in the dark giving off sparks. The last panel shows a scorch mark. The captions read: "Fear keeps us distant but safe, without this former love that was so easy to put down, so easy to light a fire to it, and to be satisfied with its absence, denoted only by the scorch marks where our love once lay."

Crossed Wires. 👁️💧 Comic excerpts from my personal diary, circa 2021.

🥹🥹🥹

thanks jaclyn!

A map I produced for a story focusing on the harrowing route Haitians take to flee a gang-ravaged Port-au-Prince, read the story here:

www.wsj.com/world/americ...

Deck the halls (extra carefully): Common Christmas injuries, illustrated | CNN Every year, an estimated 16,000 people head to the hospital for holiday-decor-related injuries across the United States.

🔗🔗🔗
www.cnn.com/2024/12/21/h...