A visual guide to the way the world really works Every day, every hour, every minute we are bombarded by information - from television, from newspapers, from the internet, we're steeped in it, maybe even lost in it. We need a new way to relate to it, to discover the beauty and the fun of information for information's sake. No dry facts, theories or statistics. Instead, Information is Beautiful contains visually stunning displays of information that blend the facts with their connections, their context and their relationships - making information meaningful, entertaining and beautiful. This is information like you have never seen it before - keeping text to a minimum and using unique visuals that offer a blueprint of modern life - a map of beautiful colour illustrations that are tactile to hold and easy to flick through but intriguing and engaging enough to study for hours.
Information is Beautiful
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Book Description
ISBN 9780007294664 was first published in 2009 and the reprint was published in 2010, hence the the original publish date will be mentioned on the book.
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Review
"Information is Beautiful" is a wonderful present for anybody from 6 years to 96. I can't stop reading it. A lot of information is funny, all of it interesting, some of it even quite useful, so no house should be without one.
--Stoker Devonshire (12th Duke of Devonshire)
--Stoker Devonshire (12th Duke of Devonshire)
From the Publisher
We are on the third reprint and all copies now available are free from printing errors.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
91 of 94 people found the following review helpful
By Robin Hilton
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I wanted this book from the day I read about it, but waited until the printing errors were sorted out. Amazon haven't really highlighted the publishers note that says this is now on to the third reprint, and is therefore error free. So I now have a copy. And it was worth the 6 month wait.
This really is beautiful. The way some of the figures are presented is brilliantly original, and really fires the imagination for how information could be better presented. And I was surprised at some practical pages as well - eg salad dressing recipes, with quantities represented visually.
This is one of those books that will sit in the book case and be dipped into every now and again for inspiration. Enjoy it.
This really is beautiful. The way some of the figures are presented is brilliantly original, and really fires the imagination for how information could be better presented. And I was surprised at some practical pages as well - eg salad dressing recipes, with quantities represented visually.
This is one of those books that will sit in the book case and be dipped into every now and again for inspiration. Enjoy it.
97 of 104 people found the following review helpful
By J. Dawson
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Author David McCandless deserves full marks for concept, design, and content of this book. It is indeed a beautiful and endlessly fascinating book that presents all sort of information from the profound to the trivial in a highly accessible way. It is the sort of thing that is ideal to dip into at random and know you are bound to come away with some new bit of knowledge, and I have no doubt our copy will end up very well-thumbed indeed.
So why the low marks? Those are for the publishers alone. A substantial number of the graphics here are missing the text that turns them from an abstract image into information. Some graphics seem to disappear off the edge of the page, others have a title but no legend to help decipher the image, graphs may show a legend for only one axis and leave the reader to guess the other. Frustratingly, the author's own website reveals that these errors were noticed in the American edition and he attempted to correct them before the British edition was printed, however the publishers opted to just publish the same book, errors and all.
This should be a stunning book with broad appeal, however in its present state I cannot honestly recommend paying for a copy.
So why the low marks? Those are for the publishers alone. A substantial number of the graphics here are missing the text that turns them from an abstract image into information. Some graphics seem to disappear off the edge of the page, others have a title but no legend to help decipher the image, graphs may show a legend for only one axis and leave the reader to guess the other. Frustratingly, the author's own website reveals that these errors were noticed in the American edition and he attempted to correct them before the British edition was printed, however the publishers opted to just publish the same book, errors and all.
This should be a stunning book with broad appeal, however in its present state I cannot honestly recommend paying for a copy.
45 of 49 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
That there are printing mistakes in this book is a crying shame. For a book that will rise or fall on the veracity of its data, to have twelve pages with the data missing is more than unfortunate. That this UK addition has the same mistakes as an earlier American edition, seems like commercial suicide. What were Collins thinking? I feel for David McCandless, as this book has clearly been a labour of love.
That said, 'Information is Beautiful' is a brilliant book. If the twelve messed up pages were completely absent, it would still be a brilliant book. So even though you feel like you are being cheated, you're not. The other 244 pages are a feast for the eyes, and are well worth parting you from your cash. The US version is in its second edition, so if you want it to be perfect, maybe you could wait for the same over here? (There is an downloadable errata on 'IiB' website)
February strikes me as an odd date for the release of this book. It's exactly the sort of thing you would expect to see on the shelves in the run up to Christmas. It's Schott's Almanac on acid, made to appeal to the reader's inner geek. McCandless' mission is to take the assault of information that comes with living in the technological age, and represent it in a way that is easy to understand: Visually. He does so with aplomb - there are hundreds of facts in here, all in glorious technicolor.
There are graphs, pie charts and flow charts, fairly ordinary ways of displaying information, but there are also bubble clusters, Coxcombs and the delightfully named 'semantic polar grids', which are like candy for nerds. There is even a page displaying visual ways of displaying information. Subjects range from Creation Myths to Salad Dressings, via The Middle East. It's wonderful!
I must confess that you don't have to cut into me very far before you reach my inner geek (nerdiness is only skin deep), but I love this book. I've been flicking through it for hours much to the annoyance of my wife. This is a fine reference book (though I have no idea about the quality of the data collected), and would make an ideal gift for the geek in your life.
That said, 'Information is Beautiful' is a brilliant book. If the twelve messed up pages were completely absent, it would still be a brilliant book. So even though you feel like you are being cheated, you're not. The other 244 pages are a feast for the eyes, and are well worth parting you from your cash. The US version is in its second edition, so if you want it to be perfect, maybe you could wait for the same over here? (There is an downloadable errata on 'IiB' website)
February strikes me as an odd date for the release of this book. It's exactly the sort of thing you would expect to see on the shelves in the run up to Christmas. It's Schott's Almanac on acid, made to appeal to the reader's inner geek. McCandless' mission is to take the assault of information that comes with living in the technological age, and represent it in a way that is easy to understand: Visually. He does so with aplomb - there are hundreds of facts in here, all in glorious technicolor.
There are graphs, pie charts and flow charts, fairly ordinary ways of displaying information, but there are also bubble clusters, Coxcombs and the delightfully named 'semantic polar grids', which are like candy for nerds. There is even a page displaying visual ways of displaying information. Subjects range from Creation Myths to Salad Dressings, via The Middle East. It's wonderful!
I must confess that you don't have to cut into me very far before you reach my inner geek (nerdiness is only skin deep), but I love this book. I've been flicking through it for hours much to the annoyance of my wife. This is a fine reference book (though I have no idea about the quality of the data collected), and would make an ideal gift for the geek in your life.
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4.2 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love it!
I really love this book - it's great to look at both on a bookshelf and to read through. Really easy to dip in and out of. Read more
Published 22 hours ago by lou
4.0 out of 5 stars
Inspiration!
As a Graphic Designer, this is a fine way to kick start ideas, very clever indeed.
Even the stuff thats almost impossible to decipher at least looks great, and figuring it out... Read more
Even the stuff thats almost impossible to decipher at least looks great, and figuring it out... Read more
Published 10 days ago by GR
2.0 out of 5 stars
Poor Layout ruins the book
The layout of the book means that many of the diagrams are split over two pages and the division in the centre ruins the pictorial representation of the data. Read more
Published 13 days ago by K. C. Thomas
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must read
As with all statistics, read with a pinch of salt and look to where the stats were obtained. However a must read, my life is better as a direct result of this book. Beautiful!
Published 1 month ago by Malibu Benn
5.0 out of 5 stars
AWESOME
I love this book. Cleverly put together with little glimpses of humour.
Love sharing it with people when they come over - definitely good for the coffee table and great ideas... Read more
Love sharing it with people when they come over - definitely good for the coffee table and great ideas... Read more
Published 1 month ago by A E MILNE
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very disappointed
I had seen this book in paper form and thought it looked great. I decided that as it was available as a Kindle book it would look great on my iPad. What a let down. Read more
Published 1 month ago by David
4.0 out of 5 stars
Artistic, but not so scientific
This is a very pretty book with some extraordinarily clever illustrations of data. It lacks rigor though-- many diagrams don't have good legends, and some don't really give good... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Rubyrebel
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating
Very interesting and beautifully put together. I know several people who have bought this or given it as a present, and it is always a success.
Published 2 months ago by Mr A
4.0 out of 5 stars
Info IS beautiful!
I bought this as a Secret Santa gift, having been given a copy for my birthday and I love the way it sets out lots of interesting facts/stats in a way that is very appealing to the... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mathor
1.0 out of 5 stars
Frustratingly Awful
There are many good reviews for this book & some issues about printing omissions which might explain my review. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Don Juan
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