In recent years, the terms Visualization, Infographic and others have been bantered around with almost no regard to their use or meaning. There is a new vernacular emerging in the realms of data representations, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore the much simpler origins and best practices of charts and graphs.
Michael Friendly and Daniel J. Denis have put together an excellent timeline of what they call "milestones" in data visualization. It is an excellent reference to see both the bursts of innovation as well as the constant creation and trying of new designs for the last 700 years. In the first part of "Designing with Data", I cover some of the history, not as far back as this chart, but rather the ground work for our current tool set we use for charts and graphs today.
On August 9th, the BBC's Newnight programme aired a short piece entitled, The art of making information beautiful. You can see a short clip on the BBC website or on YouTube.
The programme had a short introduction to some very interesting visualizations and great examples of designing with data. Then David McCandless, author of Information is Beautiful and Neville Brody discuss.
The PDF of Designing with Data is now available for download! A paperback version can be pre-ordered and shipped in a short while.
It has been nine months of long hard work to create this PDF. There are loads of charts and graphs, all of which needed special care and attention. The team at Five Simple Steps has truly out-done themselves in the creation of this book. It is a thing of beauty.
I will keep posting updates, useful links and other interesting facts about charts and graphs on this website. Be sure to subscribe to the RSS so you can keep-up with the conversation.
As I was writing the text for the book, to keep in the flow, I simply would put (example here) or some sort of marker so I knew to go back and add or find an illustration. This certainly kept me writing-zone, but then the time came to round-up all the charts and graphs to better explain the text. I create most of these in Illustrator and handed them off to the Five Simple Steps team to clean-up and match the in-house style.
In these last few weeks we have been laying out the copy-editted text and finding a few "example here" notes that needed to be illustrated. So I've been diligently combing through my files and sending off the missing graphics.
Just for fun, I pulled one of the proof PDF files into Photoshop to make thumbnails of the pages. As you can see, the 60+ pages have an abundance of illustrations. I didn't realize just how many there were until I saw all the pages next to each other. Not to mention this is just Section 4, there are 5 sections in total, each one with copious amounts of graphics. It would be great if no two pages were identical in this book due to the illustrations!
If I haven't killed the Five Simple Steps team with my spelling mistakes and grammar edits, all these illustrations might just finish them off!
All the hard work focusing on the graphics really help advance the story as well as improve understanding by slowly building-up examples and walking you through the whole process.
The process of writing a book can be long and difficult. Couple that with all the illustrations that need to be created and reviewed. In a book about charts and graphs it's extra important to get all the images and examples correct! After 3 or 4 rounds of text editing of each chapter, they now have been type set. The PDF proofs come to me and now it is my turn to break-out the red pen and make corrections. It's quite cathartic to push pixels around after months of writing. The end product is taking shape with the help of Mark and Nick at Five Simple Steps.
Designing with data is less than a month away from being available. It is due to be out August 9th, 02010 as the Five Simple Steps team are diligently cranking out proofs and illustrations for the book.
The five, in Five Simple Steps is a great constraint for a writer. It made me consider what was important and what wasn‘t and how the book would flow. Overall, it is broken down into two major parts. The first, second and third sections (the first 15 chapters) lay the ground work. They discuss the history of charts and graphs, some issues with colour and layout, and then issues with being deceived by data and poorly (or deliberatly) designed charts. After that, the last two sections, all ten chapters worth, deal with common and not so common charts and graphs. Each chapter digs into a single chart type and discusses the pros, cons and usage for each. It is the bulk of the book, with plenty of examples and illustrations.
It is an excellent reference to see both the bursts of innovation as well as the constant creation and trying of new designs for the last 700 years. In the first part of "Designing with Data", I cover some of the history, not as far back as this chart, but rather the ground work for our current tool set we use for charts and graphs today.
