You Don't Understand Edward Tufte

23 Apr 2010

Or at least there are a lot of people writing about data graphics right now who don’t. This is not to say that Tufte is the end-all for data graphics design, but that if you’re going to call something “Tufte-esque” you should understand what Tufte is preaching.

Tufte preaches a lot of things, actually, but I believe his philosophy can be summed up like this:

Be efficient. Show as many relationships as can be clearly read, and maximize the amount of information conveyed by every drop of ink on the page.

Of course there’s more to his philosophy, but that’s the crux of it. Tufte wants you to be concise, and remove everything that isn’t necessary. In a way he is to graphic design what Jakob Nielsen is to writing. Here are some things which have been referred to as “Tufte-esque” (not necessarily by the authors):

Tufte is not about being slick, colorful, or particularly “pretty.” His graphics are beautiful in their expressive power, not necessarily in their aesthetic appeal (though they sometimes are that as well). This is not a criticism of the above graphics, it is just to say that they are not “Tufte-esque.”