Europe, a continent of coalitions far beyond Spain
Context
An electoral-governance analysis of coalition patterns across 38 European countries, showing that multiparty agreements are the norm rather than the exception. I built comparative visual structures to connect institutional diversity with recurring political outcomes.
My role
- Data visualization
- Cartography
- Frontend development
I designed and implemented the visual storytelling system, building comparative structures that connected institutional diversity with recurring coalition outcomes across Europe.
Data and methodology
As one of my first major projects at EL PAÍS, the piece combined political dataset curation with scroll-based visual explanation and strict performance constraints.
The core interaction linked a geographic view to a structural summary view, allowing readers to move from national context to comparative coalition patterns.
Key decisions
- We built the narrative to challenge a common assumption in Spain: coalition governance is not exceptional in Europe and appears in many stable political systems.
- A map-to-treemap morphing transition was used as the central explanatory device; to make it robust, I heavily refined the TopoJSON source (country quantization, geometric cleanup, and island simplification).
- Design and rendering performance were treated as non-negotiable requirements, with constant tuning for smooth interaction and visual clarity.
Result
The final piece delivered a fast, clear, and technically polished explanation of coalition prevalence in Europe through a single coherent visual flow.
Impact and learnings
- The project became a formative milestone in my practice, especially in balancing explanatory design, interaction quality, and runtime performance.
- Built mostly in vanilla JavaScript (with D3, Flubber, and TopoJSON utilities), it strengthened my workflow for high-control newsroom interactives.