Status Updates From The Visual Display of Quant...

very clean and pleasing epilogue page. "Design is choice. The theory of the visual display of quantitative information consists of principles that generate design options and that guide choices among options... What is to be sought... is the clear portrayal of complexity."

very interesting concept of "sparklines", or "datawords: data-intense, design-simple, word-sized graphics"

an obsession with "data density" - how many numbers can you show per square centimeter? getting into "small multiples" territory - "small multiples are an excellent architecture for showing large quantities of multivariate data." some excellent examples, i particularly like the use of small multiples like frames of a movie. also appreciate his encouragement to shrink graphics as much as possible

"Graphics can be designed to have at least three viewing depths: (1) what is seen from a distance, an overall structure usually aggregated from an underlying microstructure; (2) what is seen up close and in detail, the fine structure of the data; and (3) what is seen implicitly, underlying the graphic - that which is behind the graphic." Exemplar: US Census where each dot represents 500 people