Data Flow – Visualizing Information in Graphic Design
September 2008 - edited by Robert Klanten, Nicolas Bourquin, Sven Ehmann, Thibaud Tissot
design: onlab Berlin, Thibaud Tissot
Text editor and foreword: Ferdi van Heerden
cover photography: Andrea Galvani
published by: Gestalten
256 pages, 24 x 30 cm, full colour, hardcover; English text; ISBN 978-3-89955-217-1 order >
release: September 2008
Interview with Nicolas Bourquin and Thibaud Tissot about the book
see it on gestalten tv >
Marrying the visual metaphor and intent by shaping an experience, or view, to confuse, to inspire, to redress or to connect. Inducing complexity that allows just the right amount of contrast to drive profile, focus and definition, thus matching the complementary relationship between complexity and simplicity.
Datasphere
Using the circle as the first, perfect shape, impossible to achieve by human hand, it derives the tension between what is achieved and what could be achieved.
Datanets
Revealing the structure of meaning, the network of data points shows cause, context or collaboration.
Datascape
Switching between topography and topology, the spatial arrangement of data at once imposes flow, direction, context and order.
Datalogy
Providing data with weight, space, texture and sensual experiences communicating through the entire bandwidth of human perception.
Datanoid
Giving the data real personality and relevance to live up to the fascination of one's own reflection, thus regulating various degrees of abstraction.
Datablocks
Implying certainty and substance of quadrangular destiny by defining borders, clear order and straightforward comparability of data.
Data Flow presents an abundant range of possibilities in visualising data and information. Today, diagrams are being applied beyond their classical fields of use. The more concrete the variables, the more aesthetically elaborate the graphics - sometimes reaching the point of art - the more abstract, the simpler the readability. The abundant examples in Data Flow showcase the various methodologies behind information design with solutions concerning complexity, simplification, readability and the (over)production of information.
