From the minute I saw the diagram of Napolean’s march, I knew that I had a lot to learn about information design.

I quickly bought all of Tufte’s books and signed up for one of his half-day seminars. At the seminar I was mesmerized not only by the range of print graphical design but also by the information design for video graphics. His video of visual music was a powerful example of how to combine the senses of sound and vision.

He provides examples of print designs that teach and make much clearer what a difficult topic is about by looking at Oliber Byrne’s 1847 version of The Elements of Euclid. The following page from the book demonstrates what happens when you combine typography, color and diagrams to illustrate a mathematical proof.

When we designed Attenex Patterns, we faced the challenge of how to represent large volumes of documents in an abstract multi-dimensional space. All of our efforts to represent the abstract space in three dimensions failed to increase productivity. Yet, when we adhered to Tufte’s principles illustrated by Napolean’s march and combined more than seven variables in a two dimensional space productivity increased tenfold.

For further information on Tufte’s books, posters and seminars visit http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte

Books by Edward Tufte