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Way before the digital era and the info-graphic, Tufte laid down principles of good information design that are still the gold standard. His book is a classic.
Tufte’s four books — the latest is Beautiful Evidence — have sold almost 2 million copies. The Visual Display of Quantitiative Information is one of the top 100 books of the 20th century on Amazon, and reading it changed my life.
Tufte cares about the integrity of numbers. He treats information reverently. He wants us to present information that is beautiful, meaningful, and accurate. To assume, (as Salon writes),that we have a smart, curious audience willing to explore complex information as long as it’s presented with grace and clarity.
He battles ‘against decoration replacing substance’,
Tufte is a philosopher king who reigns over his field largely because he invented it. For years, graphic designers were regarded as decorators…Tufte introduced … math and science to the discipline and…over the years his influence has changed the way places like the Wall Street Journal and NASA display data.
Here are highlights of him talking about Beautiful Evidence.
Here he’s at the Metropolitan Museum of Art about Medieval manuscripts: Pen and Parchment – The Beautiful Evidence of Medieval Drawings
And click here to compare him to Gene Simmons of Kiss. Which sonorous smoky baritone belongs to whom?
Edward Tufte Wants You to See Better (npr.org)
“The world is much more interesting than any one discipline.” (exp.lore.com)
Data Visualization Panel Discussion: MIT SSAC13 (roughlynormal.wordpress.com)
Edward Tufte quote of the day (rumproarious.com)
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Edward Tufte quote of the day (rumproarious.com)
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