Customer Rating: 
Summary: Read to Learn, Read to Enjoy
Comment: I will preface this review by saying that you should be reading this book to either learn, or enjoy design -- But I will also say that the presentation of any form of material, either in business, science, or even on the Internet will benefit from the lessons held within this book.Beautifully laid out, easy to read, Tufte's book is full of images that play on the eyes, and remain etched in your head. A book you'll be proud to have in your library or on your coffee table.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A superb, inspiring book!
Comment: Envisioning Information is Tufte's best work. It is a catalog of world class information design examples, culled by the author. He has collected examples from sources as diverse as Gallileo's observations of Saturn, a 3D map of a Japanese shrine, a visual "proof" of Pythagoras' theorem, color studies by the artist Joseph Albers, and a New York train schedule. This is not a "how to" book, but rather a group of inspiring examples showing any would be information designer the concepts behind the execution of these superb examples.The concepts are painstakingly argued and illustrated. Tufte is obsessed with quality - the book is printed on 100% rag paper using old fashioned lead type because he believes this yields the highest quality results. One of the best books I have ever read when it comes to visual design!
Customer Rating:
Summary: worth it for one example alone...
Comment: ... though there are plenty others in the book that are fascinating. I flipped open the book just now and arrived at a discussion of whether Maya Ying Lin's Vietnam Memorial should have had the names ordered by date of death or alphabetically. As there were over 600 Smiths who died in Vietnam and 16 James Joneses, an alphabetical listing would have given the memorial the flavor of a telephone directory. Tufte persuasively argues and demonstrates how graphic design and information presentation affects thinking, decision-making, and emotion.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Every Web designer should read this book
Comment: This is the third of Edward Tufte's brilliant trilogy on how information should be displayed. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information is about pictures of numbers. Envisioning Information is about picturing nouns. Visual Explanations is about picturing verbs. All three are beautiful artefacts in their own right, encapsulating the author's ideas in the actual production of the book. Each is crammed with examples of good and bad practice over the past centuries.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: DISAPPOINTING
Comment: The book is expensive,thin, and misses the point. The illustrations for the book are never labelled, so you have no idea where the text refers to the illos! How can a book by a "designer" be that bad?! Some of the examples of good or innovative design is excellent but it says more about the "other" designers and not this book's author. Some of the obscure older examples of information design is rather good but if you want a good book on design, this is not it. Perhaps it will be a source of inspiration... The book is a confusing and artsy fartsy sort of a book typical of the mindset of artists and designers. They're so wrapped up in their personal aesthetics. It's not practical and it does not help to illuminate the history and development or practice of good design when conveying information. The idea that good design in the case of the space shuttle explosion could of been prevented thru good information design is rather silly. The reason why the space shuttle disaster was not prevented has as much to do with management issues (ie not listening to engineers that issue warnings in memos) and hubris of the NASA agency and confidence as well as political pressures from Congress that wished to ax the agency's funding led to the disaster and NOT the fact some graph wasn't well prepared. If you want good design, just go buy an issue of ID or other expensive design magazine or journal or better yet, go to a university library. I don't understand why other reviewers here gush over Tufte. The production values for this book are excellent. If you are interested in this book, please review it first. You may be disappointed and you may end up loving it.
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