
Beautiful Evidence

Tufte has written a handful of eye-popping books with ahead-of-the-curve titles (The Visual Display of Quantitative Information had to be self-published in 1986). Beautiful Evidence, published in 2006, is his most accessible, with tipped-in sheets for the famous graphic on Napoleon’s March on Moscow, how-to-dance-the-gavotte charts, and an 1823 map showing how many slaves fit into a ship named Vigilante. Data visualizers may prefer the earlier, wonkier tomes, but this one provides the pure pleasure of browse and learn.
With data visualization now the latest fad, are Edward Tufte’s books losing their relevance? Compared to the jaw-dropping work of computer scientists and Web designers like John Maeda, Yugo Nakamura, or Jonathan Harris, his approach to envisioning information could feel a little dated. But Tufte would probably argue that the stunning interactive infographics that are recently the object of our wonder—and deservingly so—are just eye-and-brain candies, as deceptive as the PowerPoint charts and graphs he so despises. In his books and conferences, Tufte blames the poor quality of the NASA data analysis and PowerPoint graphics for the successive disasters of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles.
Under close inspection, the graphic pyrotechnics now available online function as art installations, scientific curiosities, or sales tools but they do little to help viewers understand problems and issues. Using graphics to embellish information instead of analyzing it is the kind of thing that makes Edward Tufte livid. Professor emeritus of political science, statistics, and computer science at Yale University, author of many best-sellers (all self-published), and a tireless public speaker, this historian of information and disinformation has for more than 25 years been advocating a return to clear, legible graphics that intimately associate numbers, letters, diagrams and drawings in order to inform, instruct and inspire. His system is based on the sound management of complexity. The eye, he says, is an instrument eager for minutiae: sometimes, adding compact details suffices to shed light on what would otherwise be misleading information or statistics.
One important caveat of his theories, often overlooked, is that these all-important details, easily spotted on paper, are hard to read on the screen. Indeed, one of the distinctive characteristics of his books is the quality of their paper and of their printing that allow him to demonstrate what a fine instrument the eye can be. In his chapter on “ChartJunk” in The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, he shows that a black speck, the size of a dot on the “i” in six-point Garamond Light, is perfectly visible when extraneous graphic clutter is removed.
This apostle of complexity still has his fans. Among nerds, geeks, mathematicians of every ilk, web designers, programmer-analysts, graph-worshippers, cartographers, statisticians, and contemporary artists, his aphorisms are as cherished as those of Albert Einstein or the Dalai Lama.
Web users share his adages. Various lists of his practical tips circulate on the Net. They include: Do not exaggerate vertical scale . . . on the contrary, emphasize horizontal scale; collect words, numbers and illustrations in one space, as small as possible; avoid grids, or replace them with light grey lines; use an array of very fine lines; avoid thick lines, moiré effects, stripes and bright colors.
But my favorite tip, that applies to more than just charts, could serve as a warning label when dealing with difficult life situations: beware, the desire for conclusion is always suspect.
Shorten the textAnnouncements
If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture by Moshe Safdie
If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture
By Moshe Safdie
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic
Published: September 2022
One of the world’s greatest and most thoughtful architects recounts his extraordinary career and the iconic structures he has built—from Habitat in Montreal to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore—and offers a manifesto for the role architecture should play in society.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York by Steven Heller
Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York
By Steven Heller
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Published: October 2022
An entertaining coming-of-age memoir from Steven Heller, award-winning designer, writer, and former senior art director at the New York Times, that takes readers on a visually inspired look back at being at the center of New York’s youth culture in the 1960s and ’70s.
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman
Women Holding Things
By Maira Kalman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: October 2022
In the spring of 2021, Maira and Alex Kalman created a small, limited-edition booklet, “Women Holding Things,” which featured select recent paintings by Maira, accompanied by her insightful and deeply personal commentary. The booklet quickly sold out. Now, the Kalmans have expanded that original publication into an extraordinary visual compendium. We see a woman hold a book, hold shears, hold children, hold a grudge, hold up, hold her own. In visually telling their stories, Kalman lays bare the essence of women’s lives—their tenacity, courage, vulnerability, hope, and pain.
Popular NowWeekMonth
- One Book and Why: Graphic Designer Louise Fili Recommends . . .
- One Book and Why: Architect Steven Holl Recommends . . .
- One Book and Why: Graphic Design Writer Steven Heller Recommends . . .
- A Year in Design Books: Holiday Gift List 2022
- Baseball, Architecture, Time, and Creativity
Recent Articles


