Eoin Colfer is best known for his bestselling Artemis Fowl series, which inspires fanatical devotion in its fans. Entertainment Weekly raved: "The...
Continue »
This book is indispensable for anyone who has to present numerical information to other people (scientists, business people, journalists, etc.) Tufte beautifully lays out how to (and how not to) communicate numbers through graphs, charts, maps, tables, etc. for maximum visual impact, understandability, and information density.
He does this in a way that turns what might be a textbook or how-to manual into a coffee table art book. Two of my favorites are the chart depicting a 24 hour train schedule (which appears on the cover) and a map showing Napoleon's drive to Moscow, with the line width proportional to the number of troops left. Both simply and effectively convey a maximum amount of information with a minimum amount of ink in a visually appealing way.
His other two books, Envisioning Information (which, as Tufte describes it, deals with visualizing nouns) and Visual Explanations (visualization of verbs) are similarly beautiful and highly recommended.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(28 of 52 readers found this comment helpful)
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.
Customer Comments
Ian Craig has commented on (1) product.
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information 2nd Edition by Edward R Tufte
Ian Craig, November 24, 2006
This book is indispensable for anyone who has to present numerical information to other people (scientists, business people, journalists, etc.) Tufte beautifully lays out how to (and how not to) communicate numbers through graphs, charts, maps, tables, etc. for maximum visual impact, understandability, and information density.He does this in a way that turns what might be a textbook or how-to manual into a coffee table art book. Two of my favorites are the chart depicting a 24 hour train schedule (which appears on the cover) and a map showing Napoleon's drive to Moscow, with the line width proportional to the number of troops left. Both simply and effectively convey a maximum amount of information with a minimum amount of ink in a visually appealing way.
His other two books, Envisioning Information (which, as Tufte describes it, deals with visualizing nouns) and Visual Explanations (visualization of verbs) are similarly beautiful and highly recommended.
(28 of 52 readers found this comment helpful)