Simple Complexity

Edward Tufte

Edward Tufte is the master of effective and clear visual presentation of analytical information. His Ask E.T. section of his website is a tremendous resource with extremely valuable discussion.

Although I find the design of his site hard to manage, it is packed with great information. His four books are must have resources for anyone trying to convey complex information graphically.

His first book The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition discusses design of data graphics. If you only read one book on the topic. This is the one to get.

His next book Envisioning Information revolves around the graphical display of complex data when the subject is nouns (people, places and things).

He followed this with Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative, which is about pictures of verbs. Discussions center around displaying complex charts and statistical graphics representing motion, process, and cause and effect.

His most recent book Beautiful Evidence discusses methods for presenting evidence as well as being an excellent consumer of evidence presentations. The book is stunning.

These are marvelous books that I return to over and over again. I believe there is at least one more book on the way. Tufte apparently originally conceived of a series of five books. Does anyone know the subject matter for the next book?

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