Information is Beautiful (2024)

pattrice

Author6 books83 followers

March 17, 2012

I usually don't use the star system unless I can give four or five stars, but in this case I am making an exception in order to counter-balance the trend I see in the data about this book. Scroll through the reviews and you will see that people who know how information visualization is supposed to be done are giving this book bad reviews and only one or two stars. The enthusiastic five-star reviews are coming from folks who simply enjoyed looking at the pictures in the book. Their enjoyment of what experts identify as shoddy work illustrates (pun intended) its danger.

Why do I say the work is shoddy? Not for aesthetic reasons. Although I personally found the relentless use of flat graphics in saturated colors to be visually exhausting, that's a matter of taste. But the use of graphics to visualize data is not just a matter of taste; it's also a matter of integrity.

Integrity in infographics begins with the selection of the data to be visualized. As the old programming phrase goes, "garbage in, garbage out." If the data are questionable, then nothing truly useful can come of putting them into visually interesting configurations. If the data are false, then those visual depictions might even be dangerously misleading.

McCandless wants us to believe, for example, that "freak lawnmower accidents" are responsible for more deaths than second-hand smoke. Is that really true? Look closer, and you see that the freak lawnmower accidents are allegedly more common than deaths due to assault. Really? Maybe. Let's check the sources. The Guardian, Time Magazine, and... Google. Yes, the author of a book published by a reputable publisher makes an error no high school teacher would allow a student to make, citing a search engine rather than a reliable source of information. Of course, using Google, we can find all sorts of "facts"--including tobacco industry propaganda aimed at low-balling the rate of death due to second-hand smoke. Who knows upon which of those cyber-"facts" upon which McCandless relied while constructing this diagram? Not us, because he doesn't tell us. And so, there's no way to know whether the facts upon which the whole ballgame depends are accurate or not.

It's not just that one chart. Over and over again, McCandless attributes the data in his infographics to Google, Wikipedia, or other unreliable and/or unintelligible sources. Readers who have studied statistics, information design, or related subjects know to look for the sources, see that they are shoddy, and consequently understand that the graphic cannot be taken seriously. But naive readers see pretty, pseudo-scientific charts and assume that they are being accurately informed as well as entertained.

It gets worse. The graphics themselves are sometimes constructed in misleading or nonsensical ways, thereby further diminishing their integrity and utility.

Why does this matter? We're swimming in data that might be useful in solving the many complex problems that confront our families, communities, and countries. Information visualization can be useful in two ways: (1) to accessibly illustrate and disseminate what we already know, and (2) to figure out new things by looking for patterns and relationships among data. Neither of these purposes is served by accustoming readers to infographics that lack the most basic integrity.

Mark Lawrence

Author88 books54.3k followers

June 1, 2023

A fascinating and beautiful book. Sadly my edition had at least a dozen major printing errors which rather detracted from the reading experience.

Still, the pictures that were complete and labelled were very interesting and well done.

There's an enormous amount of added value that a good info-graphic brings to some data. I've made various efforts in this direction in the fantasy genre, just to bring home issues of scale or popularity.

This one shows the heights of various fantasy towers relative to real world ones.

Information is Beautiful (3)

And this one (modified from another source) for causes of fantasy deaths.

Information is Beautiful (4)

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Michael

719 reviews17 followers

May 13, 2010

What a crashing disappointment. This book, which positions itself as a showboat of creative data visualization, LOOKS great. It is initially fun to browse. But it is no fun to pay attention to, as you soon realize that almost every single item on display is marred by something. The something differs from image to image -- sometimes it's just that the information is pointless, but often the most fundamental laws of visual representation are ignored. Indeed, several images do a considerably worse job at representing information than a set of typed lists would do: check out "Most Successful Rock Bands" for a particularly egregious example. Then, some "images" really ARE just typed lists ("Loevinger's Stages of Self Development", "Internet Virals"). And obvious factual errors are rife (your chances of dying in a bus or train accident are 1 in 77, apparently, as opposed to your 1 in 18,585 chance of dying in a car accident. uh huh).

In beautiful full-spectrum color, this will be the most disappointing book on information design you ever look at carefully.

    coffee-table graphic non-fiction

Russell Ince

53 reviews2 followers

July 17, 2011

Information is Beautiful by David McCandless.

I think this will go down as one of the great, if not the greatest, coffee-table book of my generation. Information is beautiful is dedicated to the Internet and, indeed, almost every page seems to reflect a quintessentially contemporary concern or interest. The book's overarching theme seems to be that information is important because it empowers one to change the world for the better. Aimed partly at Guardian readers with similar interests and views as McCandless, the info-graphics on climate change, politics and theology will no doubt provoke a response from right-leaning readers who might not agree with the language or even the data employed by McCandless and they will no doubt cite Twain's 'There are lies, damned lies and statistics' cliché.

There are also a few errors or typos in places, for example, Judas Priest and Deep Purple are described in the Rock genre-ology as both Rock and Metal, although this may be true it seems to be a typo. And sometimes the info-graphics can be accused of over-simplifying or misconstruing information. For example, in evolutionary biology the concept of punctuated equilibrium is often portrayed by the media as antithetical or problematic for Darwinian evolution and indeed the info-graphic on this subject may be interpreted as implying as much. But, having read Richard Dawkins' 'The Blind Watchmaker', I know this is not in fact the case.

I expect that any book of info-graphics, no matter how well researched and designed, could be accused of over-simplifying complex issues which often require detailed and patient reading as well as a nuanced interpretation rather than a brief, facile and aesthetically pleasing glance. But one does not thumb through a book of info-graphics looking for comprehensive essays on complex issues. The power and usefulness of the info-graphic is its ability to present information in a dramatic and effective way.

I think there are three possible responses a reader can have to any info-graphic. Sometimes the information is already known and accepted in advance as being true by the reader and merely bolsters pre-existing beliefs or opinions, as will be the case with most Guardian readers and the climate change info-graphics. Sometimes the information in a diagram is unknown to the reader and, depending on the simplicity or complexity of the subject, the info-graphic can either form a new belief instantly or inspire one to research the topic further before doing so. For example, after finding the info-graphic on Amazonian deforestation I went on-line to see if it were true and, sadly, based on what I could find, it seems to be true and so I have formed a new opinion on this subject. Thirdly, an info-graphic may contradict a pre-existing belief. When this happens one can either deny the information altogether, dispute the reliability of the data or its interpretation or research the topic further and then, based on what one finds, either confirm or disconfirm one's prior beliefs.

My favourite info-graphics were the Rock and Dance music Genre-ologies. I have always been aware of House and Drum 'n' Bass music for example but never really appreciated what they were or where they came from. When I learned, however, that D'n'B was influenced by Dub Reggae (which I already love) it made a connexion and so now I'm listening to Goldie's seminal D'n'B album Timeless which I really like. This, I guess, is the power of the info-graphic.

Becky

395 reviews177 followers

March 20, 2017

Absolutely phenomenal book; full of interesting facts presented in stunning and unique ways. The only problem I found (which wasn't a content fault), was that the way the book was bound causes a lot of the content that is in the middle of the page to be unreadable. :( but other than that, fantastic!

    graphic-design on-my-bookshelves-read read-2016

Alina Rozhkova

262 reviews9 followers

July 10, 2021

Сборник инфографик на всевозможные темы (правда, без указания источников для фактчека). Узнала, что полигамия уменьшает риск умереть молодым

    facts non-fiction
January 13, 2016

These days we are surrounded by data, every transaction online or in a shop is recorded, processed and analysed. That data is sucked into vast databases that are then used to sell you even more stuff.

But in the hands of McCandless this vast data stream is shown in all its magnificence. He has taken the facts and numbers and made them beautiful, elegant and more importantly understandable. The range of subjects he has covered is vast too, there are maps of the internet, global spending, radiation charts, popular books, DNA, the evolution of computers, drugs, religion, alcohol, coffee, google search terms and many many more. All are shown in the most relevant form to aid clarity.

It is not without its flaws; I'm not completely sure that all the data is 100% accurate. Some of the graphical layouts are magnificent, cleverly constructed to portray the maximum amount of information clearly. It doesn't have a huge amount of text, just information. Lots and lots and lots of information. Well worth a look if you are interested in this type of thing, but not up to the standard of of of Tufte's masterpieces.

    books-read-2016

Megan

5 reviews2 followers

March 5, 2013

First, I question most of the data sources. Some were stated clearly enough that I understood what biases might be inherent in them, but others I would have to look up online, and I'm too lazy when I have the book right here.

Second, it's nice to see information visualization from a different viewpoint than I normally approach it. My job is to display unknown data as accurately as possible, without guessing the user's purpose or pushing an agenda. This book approaches visualization as an art. The data are known, there is often an agenda/story in mind, and aesthetics are more important than efficient discovery of the information or story therein. Thus color is a bit overused, and some inefficient layouts and labeling mechanisms are used to emphasize the story or change the overall look. Sometimes this works out fine, and other times it really doesn't work for me. There were several graphics where I simply gave up trying to read the data, let alone figure out a pattern of interest. Most of them are good enough, though, and nearly all of them are quite pleasant for a casual glance. Some even provoked a chuckle.

Good coffee table book. Could spark some interesting discussions.

    art info-vis

Lauren

157 reviews6 followers

July 28, 2013

While I can't help but subconciously evaluate a book for factual content and question the data he chooses to display, even in a book on design, I thoroughly love this work. Too often we're left with a pie chart, a bar graph, or a table to explain all of the data in the world, and McCandless does an admirable job at tackling the dissemination of information in new and engaging ways.

Melissainau

259 reviews

April 27, 2013

Reviewing before I mark this as "read" because this is a book to dip in and out of.

David McCandless is a graphic designer who compiled (I can't quite say "wrote" - it's really more "designed") this book as a means of exploring - and demonstrating - how to make information "approachable and beautiful" by presenting it visually.

I'm not sure how *useful* the book is -- but it is beautiful.

    data-visualisation

Heather

385 reviews56 followers

October 23, 2015

The ultimate coffee table book for visual thinkers, it will keep you busy for hours on end.

Shane

400 reviews3 followers

March 19, 2018

You don't so much read this book as study it. I picked up this book a few years ago because I'd heard good things about it, and went through it earlier this month. When I got it I had in mind that it might give me some ideas for custom graphics and diagrams in reports, and it did. It did more than that too.

Obviously the main reason why you display data visually is to make it quick and easy to comprehend. The many examples in this book demonstrate this very well. However, perhaps it's the vast number of pieces, one after another, but this book makes clear another truth as well - that well-designed graphics can not only make comprehension quicker, it can make it better too.

I've never really thought so. I have a pretty good grounding in science and math, I try to lead a data-driven life. So I figured I was a guy that could take the time and "really understand" a table, chart, list, whatever. And I can. But at its best this book shows the power of visual information. The very first example in the book (pp. 10-13) shows US budget numbers against the cost of the (fairly) recent financial crisis. Pages 50-57 displays the enormity of information in the DNA genome. Pages 206-207 are the best chart I've ever seen comparing radiation dosages. These are just examples, but each demonstrates its point in a way that makes it more quickly understandable, yes, but also more understandable, especially in relating parts to the whole.

There is no theme to the the information here. Instead we have a wonderful demonstration of ways to display information, many of which, back to my original intent, could be modified and re-purposed into other data sets.

I recommend this book - to people that need to design these sorts of graphics, to anyone looking for fresh ideas on graphical data, and to artists looking for inspirational links to the world of science and information. Oh, and to the layman too - if you're a trivia hound curious about new things, you'll find a lot of them here.

Esther

Author3 books23 followers

September 18, 2010

A book with a variety of infographics, ranging from idiosyncratic details about dictators' wives, to excerpts from "searches for phrases beginning with "I want" on popular dating sites (one which includes "to make my Master happy sir" and atrocious misspellings like "meet a waman for sex and maiby more"

    visual-art

Lucy

131 reviews4 followers

July 1, 2016

I love it except some pages had too many words for what they were tryna do and some I couldn't understand (bc i'm stupid:)))) ) but apart from that they were all super pretty and had mostly super interesting info

Razan

367 reviews12 followers

January 16, 2022

Anyone interested in data visualisation would love this! Have to say, although the information is presented beautifully, it would have been nice to apply a bit more data storytelling and curate it to read more like a book rather than a series of disjointed/unrelated cool visuals

Ralyn Longs

296 reviews1 follower

September 19, 2016

Pretty good, works well in monochrome. But often approached more factoid territory, and I think when looking at a small screen the visual element is not as compensating.

Kiera Beddes

1,005 reviews17 followers

October 25, 2021

We live in a visual society, inundated with unimaginable amounts of data on a daily basis. It makes sense to process data in a visual way. I came across David McCandless’ work in a infographic microcredential that I am currently working on. I find his work endlessly fascinating. It would be really interesting to adapt some of his infographic into the classroom in some ways.

    design math non-fiction

Woody

15 reviews4 followers

November 9, 2018

What a disappointment! It's garbage. I am so sorry I supported it by buying it (not checking the reviews before).

Incorrect data in many places. Some nonsensical infographics. Unreliable sources. Some of the parts are nice, to be fair, but altogether I find it a shameful piece.

Helen

3,266 reviews79 followers

November 14, 2019

This is, indeed, an amazing book! It shows, in infographic form, a wealth of information about our world. In cases of highly-debatable topics, such as religion and climate change, it offers a fair representation of both sides!

    animals medical politics

Sam

39 reviews

December 24, 2020

There’s some interesting information and some pretty pictures in here, but the sources are frequently dubious, the organisation random, and the infographics are hit or miss.

Gijs Limonard

900 reviews20 followers

October 13, 2024

Obviously riding on the success of more worked-out books on the art of the infographic, this author thought to add his two cents; not impressive at all, there are some more worthwhile alternatives available.

Michael Scott

744 reviews146 followers

August 12, 2018

TODO full review:
i Overall, David McCandless is one to watch in applied graphing.
+++ Creative, informative, artsy graphs.
+++ Personally meaningful: took lots* of notes for own projects. * 20+
+++ Excellent graphs about the progression of style (e.g., in music).
+++ Excellent radial graphs used in comparisons of complex concepts (e.g., in color interpretation by culture).
+++ Excellent graphs to present the process for creating the book, including collaborators.
+++ Excellent graphs to emphasize data at extreme scales.
++ Very good exploration of tall graphs for presenting complex dialectic debates (e.g., nature vs. nurture).
++ Very good presentation of the sources of stock-graphics and fonts. Fonts are explicitly listed and drawn!
+ Good presentation of bibliography.
--- No introduction, explaining process.
-- Some plain failed attempts (e.g., time lines, stages of you).
- No invention of a single graph element.

My rating, graph by graph (on 5-point scale, 1=worst, 3=quite good, 5=best):

5 Dance/Rock Genre-ology series, The Book of You/Me series, Colors and Culture, What does China censor online?, Moral Matrix (if only it was so simple), Low Resolution (the details make this a very accomplished, if understated, graph), The Sunscreen Smokescreen series, Climate Sceptics vs. The Consensus (one of those debates), Nature vs. Nurture, Death Spiral (if only those circles were not such...), Better than Bacon, Types of Coffee, Daily Diets, Peters Projection, Most Popular Girls/Boys Names, Most Profitable series, Making the Book, Acknowledge Map, (Visual) Table of Contents.

4 The In Colors (good use of radials, for artsy depiction mostly), Creation Myths (for the effort), Personal Computer Evolution (could have used some more links), The Poison/Remedy, Salad Dressings, Behind Every Great Man (creative), Types of Info Viz (a bit run of the mill, though), What are the chances?, Most Successful Rock Bands.

3 Left vs Right (+: creative; -: concepts seem murky), Snake Oil, Which Fish Are OK to Eat?, Amazon, What is Consciousness (for the effort), Rising Sea Levels, World Religions (but... is this even accurate, not to mention complete?), The Carbon dioxide Cycle, 20th Century Death [reasons], Pass the..., Articles of War series, Amphibian Extinction Rates.

2 Mountain out of Molehills, Books Everyone Should Read, Stock Check (very difficult to read due to radial design but extremely pleasing esthetically), Carbon Conscious (one of the few failed graphs about extreme scales, in this book), The One Machine (the Internet, but quite plain depiction), Water Towers, Taste Buds (better depictions, including the connection graphs of Laszlo Barabasi, exist already in the world of food science/complex networks), 30 Years...

1 all others, because they are not viz, viz/data not useful, etc.

    art design non-fiction

Kristi

291 reviews34 followers

February 20, 2010

The Visual Miscellaneum book is colorful and whimsical. Certain pages definitely struck my interest more than others. Yet some of the information is disorganized, hard to read, and perplexing to interpret. Many of the pages are based on subjective perceptions of Mr. McCandless - as an example, delineating on a picture of the highest grossing films out of Hollywood a line marked "Worth Watching" where Mr. McCandless decided which films were worth viewing. Many other pages deal with political themes that opens up to a subjective interpretation and representation of those themes.

I enjoyed the whimsy of Mr. McCandless' book project, but am glad I simply loaned this book from the library rather than purchase it for myself. There are many other coffee-table books on the market that would be better enjoyed.

    arts coffee-table non-fiction

Andrew Ives

Author6 books9 followers

July 4, 2019

(2012 edition) A very eclectic, varied kind of book, with unusual graphs and diagrams intended to better explain a variety of subjects. This it does with varying degrees of success. Some are quite brilliant in their importance and clarity (Peters Projection map, Kyoto targets), some are rather pointless on subject matter (Spiral Dynamics, The Book of Me, Interesting Colours, Map of the Internet... although it does look quite beautiful. 6 pages?!), some are more confusing as a diagram than they would be as a table of numbers (Time Lines). On the whole, I found this book surprisingly interesting, intelligent and informative, very tastefully laid out, well printed and imaginatively compiled. 4.25/5

    favourites

An Te

386 reviews26 followers

June 26, 2019

A book with interesting infographics and in essence a book about the world order. A book not to be read but to inspire. It has been helpful to guide in the stage of presenting information to a wider audience. Nothing to inspire in visionary, ethical or religious terms, thus the star rating, but it serves its purpose to present fascinating information on a range of topic areas from musical hits to CO2 emissions.

P.S. Sure would like to speak with the author about some of his assessments. Surely, the second coming isn't highly improbable but a certainty? How is injustice going to be resolved, if this is not the case?

Nick

54 reviews1 follower

July 26, 2010

Not bad, and very pretty, by McCandless is clearly a designer, not an infovis guy, and some of his visualization choices showed it. In addition to a number of visualizations that are only moderately more useful than a table of data (seriously, just showing a picture of the thing the data is about? that is not a visualization), there are a few missteps, mostly in places where the author chooses a pretty layout over one that would make more sense as a visual representation of the data. Still, very pretty, and a good overview of many different types of visualization.

    ischool

Cody

160 reviews

May 20, 2010

Visually stunning and a few interesting things of note. Unfortunately, this book is VERY British which looses something in the translation as I am sure you will find out when reading. It also have several factual errors for a book that is this new. It also is VERY confusing and has left things out (i.e. a chart comparing diets has NO KEY to figure out WHAt they are comparing).

If you are a trivia buff like I am there are numerous books better than this one unless you can find a copy in the dollar bin.

    non-fiction

H

1,006 reviews

February 6, 2018

If you like looking at graphs, learning new information or visually pleasing composition, Information is Beautiful is well worth your time. Spreads cover a multitude of topics, from the ingredients of coffee beverages to the varieties of romantic relationships to the meanings of colors to different cultures around the world. This edition was revised for 2012 so some information may be a bit dated; but it is well worth the look.

Cymiki

791 reviews

June 15, 2017

Love trivia? Gearing up for a Jeopardy session? Love miscellany facts but don't want to actually read about them? Then this book is for you! Full of miscellany facts and told in a visual and colorful format, this was truly engaging. Find out which fish are okay to eat or cures for hangovers from various parts of the world (hint, I am glad I am not Romanian!).

    nonfiction

Wayne

44 reviews2 followers

August 13, 2010

A word cloud is NOT an adequate visualization.

Many of these were convoluted visuals or based on wacky sources, attempting to provide a quick visual overview to "data". Some were quite well done -- the majority were failures in making sense of data.

Information is Beautiful (2024)

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