book pickings

a visual way to explore the brain pickings book archive :: otlet's shelf theme :: back to brain pickings

CREATIVITY :: DESIGN :: SCIENCE :: HISTORY :: PSYCHOLOGY :: ART

data visualization

  1. Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds Harold Bloom “Genius, in its writings, is our best path for reaching wisdom … the true use of literature for life.” Harold Bloom’s 100 geniuses of language and literature, visualized.

    Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds

    Harold Bloom

    “Genius, in its writings, is our best path for reaching wisdom … the true use of literature for life.”

    Harold Bloom’s 100 geniuses of language and literature, visualized.
  2. America and Britain Florence British vs. American politics in vibrant, minimalist vintage infographics from the father of ISOTYPE, the pictogram language that gave rise to modern infographics. This rare out-of-print volume is a true treasure of design and political history – images at the link:

    America and Britain

    Florence

    British vs. American politics in vibrant, minimalist vintage infographics from the father of ISOTYPE, the pictogram language that gave rise to modern infographics.

    This rare out-of-print volume is a true treasure of design and political history – images at the link:
  3. Trees of Life: A Visual History of Evolution Theodore W. Pietsch Trees of Life – a visual history of evolution in 450 years of tree-like diagrams of the living world.

    Trees of Life: A Visual History of Evolution

    Theodore W. Pietsch

    Trees of Life – a visual history of evolution in 450 years of tree-like diagrams of the living world.
  4. The Transformer: Principles of Making Isotype Charts Marie Neurath In the 1930s, Austrian sociologist, philosopher and curator Otto Neurath and his wife Marie pioneered ISOTYPE — the International System Of TYpographic Picture Education, a new visual language for capturing quantitative information in pictograms, sparking the golden age of infographics in print. This is the first English-language volume to capture the story of Isotype, an essential foundation for our modern visual language dominated by pictograms in everything from bathroom signage to computer interfaces.

    The Transformer: Principles of Making Isotype Charts

    Marie Neurath

    In the 1930s, Austrian sociologist, philosopher and curator Otto Neurath and his wife Marie pioneered ISOTYPE — the International System Of TYpographic Picture Education, a new visual language for capturing quantitative information in pictograms, sparking the golden age of infographics in print.

    This is the first English-language volume to capture the story of Isotype, an essential foundation for our modern visual language dominated by pictograms in everything from bathroom signage to computer interfaces.
  5. Schematics: A Love Story Julian Hibbard A truly unique, in the most uncontrived sense of the word, project exploring love, memory, and time through 43 schematic diagrams drawn from old books and paired with poetic text that gleans new meaning from the geometric forms.

    Schematics: A Love Story

    Julian Hibbard

    A truly unique, in the most uncontrived sense of the word, project exploring love, memory, and time through 43 schematic diagrams drawn from old books and paired with poetic text that gleans new meaning from the geometric forms.
  6. Visual Storytelling: Inspiring a New Visual Language R. Klanten Over the past several years, our quest to extract meaning from information has taken us more and more towards the realm of visual storytelling — we’ve used data visualization to reveal hidden patterns about the world, employed animation in engaging kids with important issues, and let infographics distill human emotion. In fact, our very brains are wired for the visual over the textual by way of the “pictorial superiority effect.” Visual Storytelling gathers the most compelling work by a new generation of designers, illustrators, graphic editors, and data journalists tackling the grand sensemaking challenge of our time by pushing forward the evolving visual vocabulary of storytelling.

    Visual Storytelling: Inspiring a New Visual Language

    R. Klanten

    Over the past several years, our quest to extract meaning from information has taken us more and more towards the realm of visual storytelling — we’ve used data visualization to reveal hidden patterns about the world, employed animation in engaging kids with important issues, and let infographics distill human emotion. In fact, our very brains are wired for the visual over the textual by way of the “pictorial superiority effect.”

    Visual Storytelling gathers the most compelling work by a new generation of designers, illustrators, graphic editors, and data journalists tackling the grand sensemaking challenge of our time by pushing forward the evolving visual vocabulary of storytelling.
  7. Just a Second Steve Jenkins From the 5,085-foot water journey of a whale’s song to the 50 beats of a hummingbird’s wings to the 300-foot plunge of a peregrine falcon, the charmingly illustrated pages weave a kind of alternative metric system for telling time through the surprising things that happen in a single second — a measure that, as Jenkins points out, is a human invention.

    Just a Second

    Steve Jenkins

    From the 5,085-foot water journey of a whale’s song to the 50 beats of a hummingbird’s wings to the 300-foot plunge of a peregrine falcon, the charmingly illustrated pages weave a kind of alternative metric system for telling time through the surprising things that happen in a single second — a measure that, as Jenkins points out, is a human invention.
  8. Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information Manuel Lima Shortly after graduating from the Parson School of Design, Lima launched Visual Complexity — an ambitious portal for the visualization of complex networks across a multitude of disciplines, from biology to history to the social web. Recently released Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information is a rigorously researched, beautifully designed, thoughtfully curated anthology of the world’s most compelling work at the intersection of these two relatively nascent yet increasingly powerful techno-cultural phenomena, network science and information visualization. From the Bible to Wikipedia edits to the human genome, the gorgeous and thought-provoking visualizations in the book will make you look at the world in a whole new way, and the insightful essays accompanying them will vastly expand your understanding of the trends and technologies shaping our ever-evolving relationship with information.

    Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information

    Manuel Lima

    Shortly after graduating from the Parson School of Design, Lima launched Visual Complexity — an ambitious portal for the visualization of complex networks across a multitude of disciplines, from biology to history to the social web. Recently released Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information is a rigorously researched, beautifully designed, thoughtfully curated anthology of the world’s most compelling work at the intersection of these two relatively nascent yet increasingly powerful techno-cultural phenomena, network science and information visualization.

    From the Bible to Wikipedia edits to the human genome, the gorgeous and thought-provoking visualizations in the book will make you look at the world in a whole new way, and the insightful essays accompanying them will vastly expand your understanding of the trends and technologies shaping our ever-evolving relationship with information.