I read a lot of books in my youth, but most of my reading time was with Mad Magazine and the World Book Encyclopedia. For a long time, they were my two primary literary influences.
I loved the encyclopedia because it was well-organized information curated by experts. It was there if I needed to look something up. It was there for random browsing. I could read the same article 10 times and still learn something new. It had an intuitive design that allowed users to easily find information.
I liked Mad Magazine for its subversive humor and art. As a comic book, though, Mad Magazine used a lot of text. It was not unusual for text to take up almost half of the page, as these images from The Empire Strikes Out parody show:
The encyclopedia and Mad Magazine were ridiculously successful. In 1985, World Book employed 45,000 door-to-door salespeople (!). For many years, Mad Magazine was the most read non-subscription magazine in the U.S.
I believe these publications’ use of design and text was key to their success. I also believe that those principles can be applied to data visualizations.
Exploratory visualizations are user-directed and used to find insights. Cole Nussbaumer described it as the process of “turning over 100 rocks to find perhaps 1 or 2 precious gemstones.” Explanatory visualizations show users what they need to know. Nussbaumer describes this process as showing the audience the 1 or 2 gemstones.
I think those distinctions work well with my literary influences:
Exploratory = encyclopedia
Explanatory = Mad Magazine
The first Mad Magazine editor, Harvey Kurtzman, acknowledged the use of text in Mad’s success:
“Cartooning consists of the two elements, graphics and texts [sic] … Obviously it is to the advantage of the total product to have good text and good art and the more closely integrated the good text and good art are, the greater the opportunity is to create the capital-A Art.”
Harvey Kurtzman, quoted in MADly, The Comics Journal, July 2000
This principle applies to good visualizations, especially explanatory ones. As I develop my skills in this area, I will think about the design principles behind Mad Magazine and the Encyclopedia.
Postscript
I am going to add a third source to my development in this area: Stephanie Evergreen. Over the last year, I found myself using the name “Stephanie Evergreen” in my google searches for visualizations. Searches included:
“line chart evergreen”
“plotting categorical data evergreen”
I joined the Evergreen Academy. It has been invaluable in my development in this area. I have learned a lot from Dr. Evergreen through the academy.