Graphic Presentation (1939)

By capturing abstractions over graphic formats it reminds me a bit of Alexander's A Pattern Language and its relationship to buildings. The chapter on Quantitative Cartoons gave me one of those "that thing has a name" moments and afterwhich a previously unremarkable piece of the cultural furniture becomes remarkable because we get a new way of seeing.

Re: Graphic Presentation (1939)

#5

Post by freekh » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 5:24 PM UTC

Wow! This is truly incredible!

Re: Graphic Presentation (1939)

#6

Post by pgrote » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 6:07 PM UTC

freekh wrote: post #5

Wow! This is truly incredible!

It really is. the Genealogy and Genetics section was eye opening.

Re: Graphic Presentation (1939)

#7

Post by LiweiZ » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

A quick skim through the preview of it reminds me of how improved technologies bring ideas to our daily life. Only with the matured tools, we see more and more applications of many of the ideas from the book. The time/energy cost of bringing them to us was too high.

Re: Graphic Presentation (1939)

#8

Post by sboak » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 7:31 PM UTC

It's fascinating to see a book approaching data visualization from first principles, without any preconceived notions or the baggage and confusion of modern tools and techniques

Re: Graphic Presentation (1939)

#9

Post by nothrabannosir » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 7:44 PM UTC

> How charts ought not to be made

https://archive.org/stream/graphicpresentat00brinrich#page/2...

75 years later, it seems bad habits die hard.

Re: Graphic Presentation (1939)

#10

Post by elijahmeeks » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 8:10 PM UTC

cariaso wrote: post #2

wow, more Tufte than Tufte and much earlier.

You must not know Tufte very well or not have looked very closely at this text. It includes numerous recommendations to use decorative elements in charts, and that kind of thing horrifies Tufte.