Communicating knowledge, one bit at a time.
With the advance of digitalization, the many Middle Age manuscripts preserved in our libraries and archives have now become increasingly available to the public. The intellectual and aesthetic wealth that they offer is staggering, and they contain loads of elaborate diagrams…
I am especially happy and honoured that four experts on the history of information graphics have contributed to my upcoming book: David Rumsey, Michael Friendly, Michael Stoll, and Scott Klein. This post is a preview of their individual chapters…
With the early modern age in Europe began a long-term process of intellectual development that brought with it an increasing appreciation of individual expertise as compared to the authority of traditional knowledge. Intellectual culture began to be shaped more and more by thinkers and artists who were devoted to the “study of reality”…
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…
My new book with art & design publisher TASCHEN looks at the incredibly rich history of infographics and data visualisation, tracing … More
The Library of Congress holds a collection of hand-drawn infographics about the life and progress of the African-American population. The … More
Dear visualisation enthusiasts, it’s MINARD DAY! Charles-Joseph was born on March 27, 238 years ago today. To celebrate his birthday, … More
Timelines seem like such a „natural idea“ these days that we don’t even notice their ubiquity anymore: Facebook timeline, news feeds, graphic interfaces for back-up versions – how did anyone manage their life before there were things like this? Timelines are a universal concept…
I stumbled upon this severe beauty of a tree diagram in the Beinecke digital collections and was immediately thrilled about this hidden gem from 1608. Then I never came around to really studying it — until just now…
The Earth is roughly four and a half billion years old. During most of that time—i.e. over the course of some four billion years—the geological and biological development on our planet happened unbelievably slow. How can we possibly form even a faint idea of this unimaginable process that is the history of the Earth?
There is a very basic joy in roaming through atlases and in looking at maps. Atlases are rich collections of places, and if there is one thing they can do it is making you travel around the world, to places near and far…
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…
The interwar period in Europe was marked by a whirlwind of contradicting social influences and political turmoil. Revolutionary and socialist … More
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…
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. Today, experts from the field like to joke that data visualisation serves as a gateway drug to statistics…
UPDATE January 2019: This article is a few years old and outdated. In 2018, my book on Minard’s work and … More
