Understanding time as a linear vector feels natural today, but it is the result of a long tradition of graphic “time maps”. One crucial innovation was the “Chronographie”, an enormous historical map published in France in 1753. A new book tells us everything about it
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Will Burtin (1908-1972) was a German graphic designer working in the US, whose work fuses influences from Bauhaus to Buckminster Fuller. He was also a brilliant conceptual thinker, who used visualisation to explain complex scientific issues. This book provides a detailed introduction to his work
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This book is my personal crown juwel: Infographics are abundant today, but few people know they have been around for centuries. They have always worked as a tool for understanding. And they have been used to explain every possible topic from cosmos to religion, from diseases to market prices. In this beautiful book, I have assembled an enormous collection from the past 800 years. Available from TASCHEN in three languages
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One of my favorite collaborations: An urban installation in the city of Breda that made the history of infographics tangible, in the truest sense of the word. Together with the Graphic Design festival Breda and Dutch illustrator Jan Hamstra
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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?
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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
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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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