tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4844458687369955274.post5119147417774660006..comments2018-07-15T00:14:54.349-07:00Comments on mapHead: Revisiting Tufte, Pt 2: In Defense of the Ridiculousnatcasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18058664776852941599noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4844458687369955274.post-172737469685835712009-03-15T12:17:00.000-07:002009-03-15T12:17:00.000-07:00I love Tufte, and applaud what he's begun -- which...I love Tufte, and applaud what he's begun -- which is an investigation into what we're really trying to do with graphical language (apoligies to any real linguists out there). Of course, he is unsufferable, dogmatic, etc..., like many brilliant folks I know.<BR/><BR/>The best part of Tufte are what his "rules" point towards -- the importance of the relationship of the graphical elements to one another, to the subject they are attempting to say something about.<BR/><BR/>Graphs work because we can "read" the relationship of one point or line to another, and understand intuitively what that relationship is, especially related to a bunch of other lines or dots on the page. If the way the lines or marks are drawn also bears a relationship to the subject we're trying to reference with those marks, the whole works better, and may uncover more relationships than we had originally anticipated.<BR/><BR/>But keep in mind that Tufte is not really trying to talk about _evocative_ marks on the page. He's talking specifically about graphic means of rendering the relationships _in very complex data_ clearly.<BR/><BR/>In architecture, for instance, there are millions of different components to a building, each in a particular relationship to other components -- finishes, substrates, structure, hardware, materials, even voids. These have to be thought of, imagined, perfected, and then described largely by graphical means.<BR/><BR/>One can do this by adding a lot of notes to the drawings, and by cross-referencing them to one another, sort of like blow-ups of the center of a town on a larger-scale state map. You can also tag pieces of equipment or materials with a number or letter, for which there is a legend or schedule someplace else. All architectural drawings make these references, and the legends or schedules can become useful in and of themselves, in giving a concsie list of, say, all the paint colors required for a particular project.<BR/><BR/>But the way the drawings really become effective, and avoid the dreaded and costly RFI (Request For Interpretation) when the damn thing is built, is to make as many corelations between drawings as possible. A section (essentially a drawing made as if one had taken a buzz-saw to the whole project, and exposed the innards of all the walls and ceiling) is most effective when paired with a plan of the same area.<BR/><BR/>When you begin to retain the construction lines of the original drawing (the way one draws a sectoin is, after all, by drawing a series of parallel lines from the plan to your setional drawing), the original important relationships between the two drawings are obvious, and become the scaffolding which connects the two.<BR/><BR/>I guess I'm saying all this because these are drawings that have to work correctly -- that is, much like a map, it has to tell the truth in order to accomplish its goal.<BR/><BR/>But there is a different kind of graphical integrity, too -- whereby we can tell, by the way we feel looking at it, or making the marks, whether it's the right mark, or whether we have to try again. These are the sketches of a plan (perhaps even traced over the fussy and correct CAD-drafted plans beneath) which tell us about an awkwardness we have yet to ressolve, a hesitation in the pen as the hand moves that tels us something about a disruption in the composition of the whole.<BR/><BR/>And also those sketches which can get at something that all the complex grahpics in the world can't touch, like Zaha Hadid's oil paintings long before she begins drafting a project.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4844458687369955274.post-9210582233791331292009-03-10T07:44:00.000-07:002009-03-10T07:44:00.000-07:00I've only read the first Tufte book but it seems l...I've only read the first Tufte book but it seems like he assumes that these graphics are solely for conveying information leaving little room for art and beauty and the things that make life (and maps and charts) interesting. His ideas are intriguing and practical (but also rigid) if you only mean to convey information. I think his books are a very useful guideline for cartographers as long as we treat them as (one among many) guidelines and not as rules. I like elephants on my maps too!Dughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05787505045121628368noreply@blogger.com