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
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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
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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
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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…
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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…
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The graphic train schedule based on a line grid (often falsely attributed to Étienne-Jules Marey) is an influential early visualization method for railway traffic. Here is everything you need to know about it. Ligne de Paris à Boulogne, 1852. Courtesy Bibliothèque nationale de France. Where do I know this from? Of course you’ve seen this…
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From the start of the 20th century the popularization of information graphics continued just as had been observed in the century previous. New contexts and uses for info graphics included illustrated magazines, popular science books…
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Visualising data on health and mortality has a most up-to-date ring to it, as if it had required the rise of big data and computational tools for something as intricate as visual health statistics to develop. Surprisingly, however, already the mid-19th century saw a huge upsurge…
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This beauty of a diagram is considered to be the first organisational chart ever. The inception of the railways in the mid-19th century must have been a mind-blowing change process…
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81 years of budget data and various categories in three diagrams – the United States Fiscal Chart from the 1870 US census atlas is a real blockbuster in the history of data visualisation…
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As you may have figured, the history of information vis is one of my favourite research topics at the moment, and I am happy to present some of my findings whenever I can. So I gladly took the opportunity to dig deeper into the subject I had only scratched upon in my earlier talk in…
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This article is outdated. In 2018, my book on Minard’s work and legacy was published by Princeton Architectural Press. It contains lots of new insights and features — piece by piece — all statistical maps by the hand of Minard that have survived to this day. In the ever growing field of information visualisation, there…
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