Beautiful Evidence is #4 in Edward Tufte’s series of books on communicating information. My mother gave a copy to my son for Christmas, and I paged through it, giving one page in ten a thorough going-over.
I’m a big Tufte fan. (If you don’t know his work, check out Scott Rosenberg’s article, The Data Artist.) I have his previous three books in my library. A good graphic speaks directly to the brain, without need for translation. I find this fascinating and have written about it.
Tufte has taught me a lot about design. (No more chart junk!) Nonetheless, I don’t find Beautiful Evidence to be on a par with its three older brothers. The earlier books were tightly organized; this latest effort reads more like Tufte cleaning out his files. He covers Sparklines (weird), trashes PowerPoint, and concludes with a piece on pedestals under outdoor sculpture. The pedestal piece gives Tufte license to include pictures of the abstract ironwork in his backyard. Like Tufte, I like dogs; unlike Tufte, I didn’t try to squeeze photographs of them into my book.
Minard’s great graphic of Napoleon’s Moscow campaign makes another appearance here.
Related: Center for Visual Learning
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