Information graphics are a substantial component of our daily media diet. Few people know they have been around for centuries. Like today, they have always worked as a tool for understanding, covering every topic that has ever posed an intellectual challenge, from cosmos and religion to diseases and market prices. Over the course of some five years of research, I have assembled an enormous collection of examples -now out in this book
Read More
“Napoleon’s Russian Campaign” is one of the most famous historical infographics ever. This is a compendium about the life and work of Charles-Joseph Minard (1781-1870), the French civil engineer who created the masterpiece. It was the last in a long series of works. He was trained in technical drawing and cartography as well as in mathematics. After his retirement, he immersed himself in the new art of statistics and data visualisation – creating an outstanding series of statistical maps
Read More
Will Burtin (1908-1972) was a German exiled graphic designer whose work feels like a bold combination of Bauhaus and Buckminster Fuller. What’s more, he also happened to be a wise conceptual thinker who integrated user experience and research into his design process
Read More
Early computing machines used punched cards as physical data storage. The book “Print Punch” (CentreCentre) presents a mind-blowing collection of those from the late 1800s through the 1970s. Their graphic design adresses machines and humans alike
Read More
History is abstract. Urban space is not. Here’s an installation that made the history of infographics tangible, in the truest sense of the word. A collaboration with the Graphic Design festival Breda and Dutch illustrator Jan Hamstra
Read More
Bar charts are everywhere today. Back around 1800, they came as a complicated visual that required abstract thinking. Was it the recording of flood levels that inspired them?
Read More
Digital archives are great to have, but hard to experience. This interactive installation lets us look at the daily work of über-artist Leonardo da Vinci, via one of his famous collections of drawings
Read More
Like many authors, German novelist Theodor Fontane was a voracious reader — and he loved to annotate his books. An interactive installation provides a glimpse into what he was after
Read More
The Middle Ages are a remote world with a completely different media ecosystem. Books were custom-made, scarce and did take an enormous time to produce. This process left a lot of space for elaborate diagrams
Read More
Researching the history of information graphics is a collective effort. I have been lucky to collaborate with some of the most prominent collectors and enablers in the field
Read More
The early modern age in Europe was shaped by the advent of printing technologies — as well as by the colonization of large parts of the world. The infographics from the period provide testimony
Read More
In the 19th century there was tremendous growth in the use of information graphics, such that by the end of the century a natural proliferation of maps and diagrams can be noted across many areas of media culture…
Read More
The Library of Congress holds a collection of hand-drawn infographics about the life and progress of the African-American population. The series was prepared by the sociologist and civil-rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois with a group of his students and alumni for the Paris World Fair in 1900. A stunning new book from Princeton Architectural Press…
Read More
sandrarendgen.wordpress.com 