Tufte, Euclid, and Galileo

My husband, John Plocher, and I
attended Dr. Edward Tufte’s
“Presenting Data and Information” class last week. Also with us
was
Dr. Danny Cohen of Sun Labs. Tufte is Professor Emeritus at Yale University, where he taught courses in statistical evidence, information design, and interface design.

I first took Tufte’s excellent touring class around 1990, after he had
published his second book. Now, there are four in his self-published
Graphics Press series:

• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information,
  2nd edition, 2001
• Envisioning Information 1990
• Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative, 1997
• Beautiful Evidence, 2006

One of the highlights of the one-day class was Tufte walking around
showing ancient printed first editions of works by
Euclid (c. 300 BC) and
Galileo
(1564-1642) to demonstrate good design and production. Tufte is the
rock star of visual information design. I highly recommend his class to
anyone for whom graphic display of quantitative information is important.
Photos:

Katy and Danny

Tufte and Euclid

Tufte talking with the audience

John with Galileo on the screen

Tufte and Galileo

Tufte and Galileo

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher