Ever since Jordan recommended the Metropolitan World Atlas, I’ve been on the look out for a copy. My search was eventually rewarded on a recent trip to - rather unexpectedly - The Architecture Centre in Bristol.
The design is far from perfect: There’s some really quite awful typography in the opening pages; Likewise, much of the data is disappointingly out of date, despite being published in 2005. But as an exercise in information composition, this book remains a truly wonderful accomplishment.
Its success resides in the author’s ability to present complicated datasets in both elegant and meaningful ways. In my opinion, Arjen van Susteren gets very close to what Mr Tufte would describe as Graphical Excellence:
“Excellence in statistical graphics consists of complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision, and efficiency. Graphical displays should
- show the data
- induce the viewer to think about the substance rather than about the methodology, graphic design, the technology of graphic production, or something else
- avoid distorting what the data have to say
- present many numbers in a small space
- make large data sets coherent
- encourage the eye to compare different pieces of data
- reveal the data at several levels of detail, from a broad overview to the fine structure
- serves a reasonably clear purpose: description, exploration, tabulation, or decoration
- be closely integrated with the statistical and verbal descriptions of a data set.
Graphics reveal data…”
Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display Of Quantitative Information
I still pull it down and flick through it for inspiration now. It really is a work of information design art.
I would counter that the typography on the early pages isn’t ‘awful’, it’s just a little too stylised (if I remember it correctly, I’m not fetching it to check).
Great recommendation mate…although I have to counter your counter and say the intro typography is fairly woeful. I’m picking holes though.