The Strunk and White of visual design

I was delighted to come across two recent articles on Edward Tufte - one of the big influences on the way I view design.

The New York Magazine calls him The Minister of Information in its article, while the Stanford Magazine's story on him carries the headline - Intelligent Designs.

I hold Tufte in the highest of regard as the Grand Master of visual design, especially in information graphics and the display of quantitative information.

I've two of his books - The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Envisioning Information, both of which are available at www.amazon.com.

He's recently come out with a new book called Beautiful Evidence, and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

His personal website also highlights two of the most beautiful informational graphics ever done in history.

The first is a map drawn up by Charles Joseph Minard of the losses suffered by Napoleon's army in the Russian campaign of 1812. It is tough getting four variables down on a two-dimensional plane but Minard's map manages to display six variables - the direction of Napoleon's army, the size of the army from the start all the way through the end, the time taken, the temperatures throughout the march, the distance covered and the places the army marched through. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Tufte describes this map as "the best statistical graphic ever drawn".

The second shows a cyclogram hand-drawn by a Russian cosmonaut, Georgi Grechko. It shows a 96-day flight of Salyut 6. Some 22 parallel time-series show 1500 sunrises and 1500 sunsets during the flight, a schedule for space walks and baths, and visits of resupply ships bringing equipment, fresh fruit, and gingerbread. How does one beat that? And Grechko rendered everything in colour. Awesome.

I'll order posters of these two graphics when I'm feeling rich, and will display them in my new place (when I do get round to getting one).