There is a short list of books that changed how their field thinks. Edward Tufte's four volumes on the visual communication of information are on that list — and unlike most canonical texts, they are themselves beautiful objects, designed and published by Tufte on his own press with the same exacting attention he asks of every chart and diagram within them.
This is the complete set:
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (Second Edition) — the foundational text, the one that introduced "data-ink ratio" and "chartjunk" into the vocabulary of every serious designer, analyst, and scientist. The second edition is the definitive version.
Envisioning Information — on the challenge of representing multi-dimensional data on flat surfaces. Cartography, timetables, scientific illustration: Tufte finds intelligence in things most people walk past.
Visual Explanations — images as argument. The Challenger disaster. John Snow's cholera map. Magic. The book where Tufte most directly addresses how pictures cause us to reason and decide.
Beautiful Evidence — the most personal of the four, and the most philosophical. On the relationship between evidence and beauty, and why that relationship is not a compromise.
All four volumes are published by Graphics Press and designed by Tufte himself — an act of aesthetic integrity that is itself an argument. These are not textbooks. They are the work of a singular mind presented on its own terms.
Condition: Like New. All four volumes in original dust jackets, sharp corners, tight spines, clean pages throughout. No writing, no highlighting, no shelf wear.
Shipping: Carefully packed, insured, tracking included.
There is a short list of books that changed how their field thinks. Edward Tufte's four volumes on the visual communication of information are on that list — and unlike most canonical texts, they are themselves beautiful objects, designed and published by Tufte on his own press with the same exacting attention he asks of every chart and diagram within them.
This is the complete set:
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (Second Edition) — the foundational text, the one that introduced "data-ink ratio" and "chartjunk" into the vocabulary of every serious designer, analyst, and scientist. The second edition is the definitive version.
Envisioning Information — on the challenge of representing multi-dimensional data on flat surfaces. Cartography, timetables, scientific illustration: Tufte finds intelligence in things most people walk past.
Visual Explanations — images as argument. The Challenger disaster. John Snow's cholera map. Magic. The book where Tufte most directly addresses how pictures cause us to reason and decide.
Beautiful Evidence — the most personal of the four, and the most philosophical. On the relationship between evidence and beauty, and why that relationship is not a compromise.
All four volumes are published by Graphics Press and designed by Tufte himself — an act of aesthetic integrity that is itself an argument. These are not textbooks. They are the work of a singular mind presented on its own terms.
Condition: Like New. All four volumes in original dust jackets, sharp corners, tight spines, clean pages throughout. No writing, no highlighting, no shelf wear.
Shipping: Carefully packed, insured, tracking included.
