Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1568989369 ISBN 13: 9781568989365

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press, 2011

Our ability to generate information now far exceeds our capacity to understand it. Finding patterns and making meaningful connections inside complex data networks has emerged as one of the biggest challenges of the twenty-first century. In recent years, designers, researchers, and scientists have begun employing an innovative mix of colors, symbols, graphics, algorithms, and interactivity to clarify, and often beautify, the clutter. From representing networks of friends on Facebook to depicting interactions among proteins in a human cell, Visual Complexity presents one hundred of the most interesting examples of information-visualization by the field's leading practitioners.

About the Author:

Manuel Lima is the founder of VisualComplexity.com and a Senior UX Design Lead at Microsoft. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and was nominated by Creativity magazine as "one of the 50 most creative and influential minds of 2009".

Manuel Lima is a leading voice on information visualization and a frequent speaker in conferences and schools around the world, including TED, Lift, OFFF, Reboot, VizThink, IxDA Interaction, Royal College of Art, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, ENSAD Paris, University of Amsterdam, MediaLab Prado Madrid.

Review:

"A rigorously researched, beautifully designed, thoughtfully curated anthology of the world's most compelling work at the intersection of two relatively nascent yet increasingly powerful techno-cultural phenomena, network science and information visualization.... A powerful tool in your visual literacy arsenal for navigating the Information Age. From the Bible to Wikipedia edits to the human genome, the gorgeous and thought-provoking visualizations in the book will make you look at the world in a whole new way, and the insightful essays accompanying them will vastly expand your understanding of the trends and technologies shaping our ever-evolving relationship with information." -- Brain Pickings

"Visual Complexity is a showcase for the intersection of art, design and science... Some of the examples are indeed silly. Some are profound. Many are decidedly beautiful. And all are fascinating, given the infinite kinds of data that can be visualized." --New York Times Book Review

"Manuel Lima, the New York-based founder of visualcomplexity.com, works at the forefront of network science and information visualization. Appropriately, his book Visual Complexity cuts through digital clutter, using colorful examples to illustrate these fields." --Surface magazine

"Intellectually ambitious... the author engages this heady material with a surprisingly sharp and lucid eye." --Metropolis

"Incredibly ambitious, deeply researched, and beautifully illustrated." --frieze

"From genealogical patterns in medieval tapestries to the math behind fractals, Lima, a senior UX design lead for Bing, shows how designers turn complex patterns into compelling artwork." --Wired

"Artistic analysis... tremendous potential for shaping how we understand our world... if you are the type who obsesses on Google Analytics or just feel the need to nerd out for a bit, pick up a copy." --Cool Hunting