Readings

Software Takes Command
by Lev Manovich

What motivated developers in the 1960s and 1970s to create the concepts and techniques that now underlie contemporary applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Final Cut? How do these tools shape the visual aesthetics of contemporary media and design? What happens to the idea of a “medium” after previously media-specific tools have been simulated and extended into software?

Read the introductory chapter.

Use the tag “R6” when you post your assessment of the readings and the questions raised.

Subtleties of Color
by Robert Simmon

The use of color to display data is a solved problem, right? Just pick a palette from a drop-down menu (probably either a grayscale ramp or a rainbow), set start and end points, press “apply,” and you’re done. Although we all know it’s not that simple, that’s often how colors are chosen in the real world. As a result, many visualizations fail to represent the underlying data as well as they could.

Read the blog series.
And/or watch the lecture.

Use the tag “R5” when you post your assessment of the readings and the questions raised.

Profiles in Badness
from Kieran Healy, Carl Bergstrom, & Jevin West

Read Healy's introductory chapter from Data Visualization for Social Science:
- Look at Data: What Makes Bad Figures Bad

Read Bergstrom & West's Calling Bullshit essays:
- Misleading axes on graphs
- The Principle of Proportional Ink

Use the tag “R4” when you post your assessment of the readings and the questions raised.

Graphesis
by Johanna Drucker

Read the final chapters:
- Interface & Interpretation
- Designing Graphic Interpretation

Use the tag “R3” when you post your assessment of the text’s message and the questions it raises.

Graphesis
by Johanna Drucker

Read the second chapter: Interpreting Visualization (and vice versa).

Use the tag “R2” when you post your assessment of the text’s message and the questions it raises.

Graphesis
by Johanna Drucker

Read the frontmatter and first chapter: Image, Interpretation, and Interface. Also consult the relevant 'plates' in the Windows section.

Pick one of the works cited in the chapter to investigate and collect some imagery and/or context to be included in your write-up. Take your pick of any books/essays/artworks mentioned in the text itself, or highlighted in the red sidebar text in the margins.

Use the tag “R1” for your post.