Data Design: Visualising Quantities, Locations, Connections

Description: Data Design: Visualising Quantities, Locations, Connections is a beautifully designed, highly practical guide to the graphic representation of quantities, locations, connections and other forms of data, founded on solid design principles. Easy to understand, the book has been created to assist designers, researchers, and writers in expressing visually through points, lines, and areas that which by words, letters, and numbers alone often have difficulty communicating. It describes problems, principles, and solutions for the visual display of information, and presents real-world didactic examples, taken from, for example, the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. The book's theoretical basis is strong, but not at the expense of clarity; readers will understand both what to do and why. After a number of introductory chapters that describe what is common to all types of visual displays, the book continues with three main parts that deal with displays showing quantities, locations, and connections. Data Design is an essential guide to how data can, and should be, presented in order to effortlessly communicate information with clarity, elegance and style. Highly illustrated and with beautiful simplicity, Data Design is an indispensable guide to the clear and effective presentation of information.

Contents: Introduction Organizing knowledge Goals Benefits Information graphics Simplicity Historical snapshots Beware of visual displays Basics Research and common sense Gestalt principles of perception Psychological principles Colour Notation Reading visual displays Choice of display Quantities Intro Variables Pie charts Vertical bar charts Horizontal bar charts Divided bar charts Stacked bar charts Step charts Line charts Layer charts Radar charts Scatter plots Picture tables Isotype Locations Intro Geographical maps Thematic maps Map scale Map projection The geographical coordinate system Map orientation Map symbols Visual variables Map generalization The process of map making Choropleth maps Isopleth maps Contour line maps Cartograms You-Are-Here maps Transit maps Connections Intro Trees / Mind maps Positioning maps Timelines Flow charts Concept maps Venn diagrams / Carroll diagrams Euler diagrams Definitions Index Sources


Author Biography: Per Mollerup is Professor of Communication Design at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. His previous positions include Professor in Design, Olso National Academy of the Arts, Olso and Managing Director of Deisgnlab A/S, a creative design studio. He is the author of several books on design.