Inside DG #62: The Iran war explainer

The latest in our series of infographic explainers, which appears in issue 62 of Delayed Gratification, focuses on the 2026 Iran war. We spoke to associate editor James Montague and art director Christian Tate about their work…

Why do we run infographic explainers in Delayed Gratification?
James Montague: It’s about using infographics to present a news story in a really compelling way, which makes it easier for readers to understand complex issues. Basically we gather together a lot of relevant information and feed it into Christian’s massive design brain for him to turn into infographics.

Christian Tate: It can sometimes feel like it’s taken for granted that people have background knowledge of stories in the news, so this is our way of helping readers by offering an overview and adding some context.

In issue 62 of Delayed Gratification, the topic of the explainer is the war in Iran, which began on 28th February when the US and Israel launched a devastating air assault against the country. It’s a vast topic, so how did you decide what to include in the explainer, and what to leave out?
JM: We spent weeks struggling with this question because there’s so much we could cover, so much information. It’s also still very much a hot-button issue, so we needed a cut-off point, which we decided would be the April ceasefire deal. We talked a lot about looking at the reasons for the war, the conditions that allowed it to happen. And initially we were working on the basis of taking in the entire span of the US-Iran relationship going back to the 1950s; the CIA-backed coup that got rid of Mohammad Mosaddegh, the prime minister, which led to the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, which led to the 1979 revolution and so on… But that seemed insane – that’s a book not a 10-page explainer, so we decided to start in 1979. Christian found an incredible way of showing this detailed timeline of the US-Iran relationship since 1979 on two pages, along with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s regular warnings about Iran’s nuclear programme over the past 30 years. For me this infographic is the centrepiece of the explainer.

Christian, can you tell me about any design challenges you faced while working on this particular infographic?
CT: Well actually, when I saw James’s text for it I thought, there’s absolutely no way that can all fit on two pages, although that’s what I think whenever I get any text from Delayed Gratification writers because there’s always too much text.

There are also some fantastic photographs in the explainer. What role does photography play when you’re creating a package of infographics like this, and how do you decide the kind of photographs to use?
CT: I think it’s very important, because you’ve got to choose them carefully. You’ve only got a few to tell the story. There aren’t that many good sources of photographs from inside Iran but Getty Images is brilliant, so we put together a big Getty lightbox and have a million pictures to choose from, and we filter it down to the ones that go with the infographics, and those that help us tell the story.

What’s the most surprising thing you learned about the Iran conflict by working on this explainer?
JM: It was interesting overlaying the economic conditions in Iran with the uprisings that have taken place in the country from 1979 until this year. There’s that phrase from US politics, “It’s the economy, stupid”, and in the case of Iran it usually is the economy, stupid. When there are extreme levels of currency devaluation or inflation, that’s when we tend to see uprisings and protests and unhappiness with the regime.
CT: For me it’s learning about the importance of the Strait of Hormuz and how much goes through there. I didn’t really understand the knock-on effects of oil not passing through, the impact on jet fuel and diesel and fertiliser and everything else. I guess Donald Trump didn’t really understand that either…

The US-Iran relations timeline can be viewed here. You can read the full story in issue 62 of Delayed Gratification, available from our online shop here.

Friday, July 24th, 2026 - Delayed Gratification magazine Extras