EmilyW.R01

I found the first reading to be very interesting. It was very informative which is important when we are talking about information. The history of graphs, charts and maps was unknown to me before reading this article and I'm glad that this was the first reading we had to set the history in our minds and inform us how this whole process of information design was derived.

The one designer in particular that stoked my interest was E. J. Marey. I think he was very ahead of his time with the graphics he used. They are so timeless and beautiful that even today we are seeing these types of graphics to depict information. The extremely visual based time lapse graphics describe exactly what is going on with out any use of words or numbers.

Another graph that stood out to me was the map of 1864 French wine exports by Charles Joseph Minard. It's not as extensive in the quantity of data as, say, the universe grid, but I think it's done in a really beautiful and successful way. It is simple and easy to know what is going on. The line weight is directly representational of the data as it's flowing across the ocean to the far off lands that the wine is flowing to. Its also kind of wonderful to see this map that was done almost 150 years ago was showing something that is happening today at massive scale. It's amazing that globalization was even happening that long ago with so much less technology. They were sailing ships using only wind power across the whole world to bring people wine!

It is amazing what people can do with information. I think it is so awesome how all of these things were drawn by hand! It will be interesting to see what this class holds for the rest of the four weeks. I know it is very important to understand at least a brief history of a technique or tool before you begin to utilize it but I do hope we get to explore some of these practices applied to our time and society and our data. Modern practice is what it's all about but you also have to understand what has been done already so that you can modify it and alter it into new and beautiful ways of displaying information.