I like to grab an older visualization book every now and then to see what others thought about before me. The discussions people have now about the “best” way to visualize data are typically recurring themes. The debates have been ongoing for decades — sometimes centuries — so even though visualization the field is relatively new, the process of turning data into shapes, geometries, and colors is a more fluid evolution than an itemized list of concrete decisions.
For my recent grab, I went back to 1984. I was about three years old at the time. The first printing of Designer’s Guide to Creating Charts & Diagrams by Nigel Holmes came out.
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