Visual Explanations, Edward R. Tufte (1998)

'Those who discover an explanation are often those who construct its representation'

1. Images and Quantities

The Urge to See, Josef Koudelka
Prague, Aug. 22 1968

pg. 13 - 'Visual techniques for depicting quantities include direct labels (for example, the numerically labeled grids of statistical graphics, or, at left, dimensional tripods in architectural drawings); encodings (color scales); and self-representing scales (objects of known size appearing in an image).

...Josef Koudelka's haunting and vehement photograph, The Urge to See, testifies to the empty streets during the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia that ended the Prague Spring'

'In the foreground, a watch documents the hour (direct label), as the shadows and gray light hint at the time of day (encoding), while in the distance Soviet tanks surround the parliament building (self-representing scales, as many familiar objects in perspective demarcate the street and the photographer's location)'

Thirteen Photographs: Alberto Giacometti and Sculptures
Herbert Matter, 1978

pg. 18 - 'Each sculpture is measured and scales on a common grid in an extraordinary gallery of images. (This design is also helpful for field guides to birds, fish, plants, and the like.) Titles, dates, and dimensions are shown'

Popular Astronomy, 59
(February 1951), pp. 58-59

5. Parallelism: Repetition and Change, Comparison and Surprise

pg. 100 - 'Captions to pictures, legends on maps, labels, and codes are partial representations of the image itself, running in parallel with the image.

Above, we see a mix of photograph, drawing, number, and word that make five partial, parallel descriptions. It all began at the 84th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Haverford, Pennsylvania on December 27, 1950, when a photograph was taken of the 146 attendees'

'[With this] dense clustering of faces in the photograph, a conventional typographic caption would not do. Instead this diagram arrays numbered heads as an intermediary code, linking the picture to names of the 146 attendees'

'Several landmark heads, nonetheless, enable viewers to find their way: the large hat (91), the profile (135), another hat (7), and the goatee (125) all serve as differentiating signs to give the eye reference points in locating other faces'

pg. 103 - 'Embodying inherent links and connections, parallelism synchronizes multiple channels of information, draws analogies, enforces contrasts and comparisons'

'Our examples have inventoried all sorts of design strategies that collate like with like: pairing, orientation, simultaneity, overlap, superimposition, flowing together on a common track, codes, pointer lines, sequence, adjacency, analogy, similar content.'

'Parallelism provides a coherent architecture for organizing and learning from images - as well as from words and numbers, the allies of images. And by establishing a structure of rhythms and relationships, parallelism becomes the poetry of visual information.'

Nova Arte de Viola (Lisbon, 1789)
Manoel da Paixao Ribeiro

6. Multiples in Space and Time

pg. 105 - 'Multiple images reveal repetition and change, pattern and surprise - the defining elements in the idea of information'

'Multiples enhance dimensionality of the flatlands of paper and computer screen, giving depth to vision by arraying panels and slices of information'

'Multiples create visual lists of objects and activities, nouns and verbs, helping viewers to analyze, compare, differentiate, decide - as we see below with 12 hands in 12 positions for making 12 sounds'

'Multiples represent and narrate sequences of motion'

'Multiples amplify, intensify, and reinforce the meaning of images'

 Waterproof Guide to Corals and Fishes of Florida, The Bahamas, and the Caribbean

(Miami, 1986) Idaz and Jerry Greenberg

pg. 114 - 'Multiples help make fine distinctions and close comparisons among similar nouns, as in the page above showing various butterflyfishes all nicely lined up in parallel for identification'

pg. 115 - 'Good design should take into account how, when, and where the information is used'

'Just as underwater books should minimize page-turning, cookbooks should lie flat on the counter, directional guides should enable glancing back and forth between the road and the instructions'