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W.E.B. Du Bois’ Infographics

73 points by Vigier 8y ago

howon92 8y ago
wow interesting
lucaluca1453 8y ago
I use these to teach students the principles of good data visualization. He had an incredible eye for contrast, detail, and believed infographics should tell a story, not just present a lot of data. Most relevant for today, he and his team did each one of these by hand, and most of the work was in designing the visualization's structure, not playing around with code and numbers. The black and green chart about slavery is just incredible. With only 9 data points, he tells a moral story, he shares a perspective, and he educates the rest of the world on our peculiar institution. These visualizations are just incredible considering the tools they had to work with and the lack of formal data visualization science.
- dang 8y ago
  The article implies that they weren't widely known until recently. How did you run across them?
  - pvg 8y ago
    Doesn't it say it's the first time they've been collected and printed in a book? Library of Congress has had them online for 15+ years at least.
User23 8y ago
I'm either spoiled by Tufte's work, or just not getting it. What dimensionality is the spiral capturing? I get that it looks neat, but in terms of helping me to understand what the data is telling me I just don't get it. This isn't sarcasm, please explain what I'm missing. Edit: This work is quite solid by the Tufte principles that I can see how to apply, such as using ink for data and not decoration.
- no_protocol 8y ago
  The length of the line corresponds to the number of people.
  - User23 8y ago
    I got that, but why not just a bar chart? Is there something I should be learning from this design to use when I share information professionally? Because right now if I were to chart data in this format for work I'd raise a lot of eyebrows, and I'd like to know what the advantage is.
    - candu 8y ago
      (For context: not a dataviz expert by any means, but I've done a bunch of work in that space for the last several years.) For sharing information professionally? Not much - but you have to remember the context. Du Bois and his team were preparing these visualizations to be shown at the World Fair in Paris, not for a business meeting. As important as the data they portray is their underlying goal: to show that African-Americans are the equals of their European / Caucasian counterparts in cultural and intellectual endeavors. Presenting the ongoing socioeconomic plight of African-Americans as Modernist data art - at a time when Modernism itself was only just starting to spill over into the visual arts - definitely supports that goal. Now, on to the visualization merits of the spiral. We have four data points spanning two orders of magnitude. To show those on a bar chart, you'd have to either: a) use a logarithmic scale, b) use a linear scale and accept that three of the bars are tiny, or c) use "scale breaks". Instead, Du Bois presents the data in a way that draws attention to the most prominent data point, while still preserving linear scale. There are some highly effective techniques in the other visualizations as well. The property valuation chart uses annotations to provide narrative context. The freemen / slaves proportion chart uses filled-in space to lend it a stark visual weight that, again, speaks to the narrative impact. Data visualization is storytelling with data, and these charts are clearly designed to get their narrative point across - quite effectively, I'd say. Finally: Tufte was printed in the 80s, nearly a full century after these visualizations. That, more than anything, makes these striking. With the exception of Playfair's charts, Oliver Byrne's treatment of Euclid's Elements, certain railroad timetables, and few others, the world hadn't seen much in the way of truly effective visualization. They were literally inventing effective visualization techniques. That we don't hear more about Du Bois' charts is unfortunate.
nsajko 8y ago
The infographics here might also be interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte
NelsonMinar 8y ago
Here are a few more charts from Du Bois and his students: http://allmyeyes.blogspot.com/2011/02/black-history-charts-1900.html http://allmyeyes.blogspot.com/2011/02/black-history-charts-1... Du Bois is a unique and towering intellectual in American history; his history of Reconstruction remains full of truths and understandings that our society has not yet absorbed. So I don't mean to diminish his work to note that these infographics exist in a context of other beautiful graphic design and infographics from the 19th century. Some examples: Florence Nightingale: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/florence-nightingale-infographic https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/florence-nightingale-i... 1870 census: http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?9thcensus http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?9thcensus

73 points by Vigier 8y ago

wow interesting

I use these to teach students the principles of good data visualization. He had an incredible eye for contrast, detail, and believed infographics should tell a story, not just present a lot of data. Most relevant for today, he and his team did each one of these by hand, and most of the work was in designing the visualization's structure, not playing around with code and numbers. The black and green chart about slavery is just incredible. With only 9 data points, he tells a moral story, he shares a perspective, and he educates the rest of the world on our peculiar institution. These visualizations are just incredible considering the tools they had to work with and the lack of formal data visualization science.

dang 8y ago
The article implies that they weren't widely known until recently. How did you run across them?
- pvg 8y ago
  Doesn't it say it's the first time they've been collected and printed in a book? Library of Congress has had them online for 15+ years at least.

User23 8y ago

I'm either spoiled by Tufte's work, or just not getting it. What dimensionality is the spiral capturing? I get that it looks neat, but in terms of helping me to understand what the data is telling me I just don't get it. This isn't sarcasm, please explain what I'm missing. Edit: This work is quite solid by the Tufte principles that I can see how to apply, such as using ink for data and not decoration.

no_protocol 8y ago
The length of the line corresponds to the number of people.
- User23 8y ago
  I got that, but why not just a bar chart? Is there something I should be learning from this design to use when I share information professionally? Because right now if I were to chart data in this format for work I'd raise a lot of eyebrows, and I'd like to know what the advantage is.
  - candu 8y ago
    (For context: not a dataviz expert by any means, but I've done a bunch of work in that space for the last several years.) For sharing information professionally? Not much - but you have to remember the context. Du Bois and his team were preparing these visualizations to be shown at the World Fair in Paris, not for a business meeting. As important as the data they portray is their underlying goal: to show that African-Americans are the equals of their European / Caucasian counterparts in cultural and intellectual endeavors. Presenting the ongoing socioeconomic plight of African-Americans as Modernist data art - at a time when Modernism itself was only just starting to spill over into the visual arts - definitely supports that goal. Now, on to the visualization merits of the spiral. We have four data points spanning two orders of magnitude. To show those on a bar chart, you'd have to either: a) use a logarithmic scale, b) use a linear scale and accept that three of the bars are tiny, or c) use "scale breaks". Instead, Du Bois presents the data in a way that draws attention to the most prominent data point, while still preserving linear scale. There are some highly effective techniques in the other visualizations as well. The property valuation chart uses annotations to provide narrative context. The freemen / slaves proportion chart uses filled-in space to lend it a stark visual weight that, again, speaks to the narrative impact. Data visualization is storytelling with data, and these charts are clearly designed to get their narrative point across - quite effectively, I'd say. Finally: Tufte was printed in the 80s, nearly a full century after these visualizations. That, more than anything, makes these striking. With the exception of Playfair's charts, Oliver Byrne's treatment of Euclid's Elements, certain railroad timetables, and few others, the world hadn't seen much in the way of truly effective visualization. They were literally inventing effective visualization techniques. That we don't hear more about Du Bois' charts is unfortunate.

nsajko 8y ago

The infographics here might also be interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte

NelsonMinar 8y ago

Here are a few more charts from Du Bois and his students: http://allmyeyes.blogspot.com/2011/02/black-history-charts-1900.html http://allmyeyes.blogspot.com/2011/02/black-history-charts-1... Du Bois is a unique and towering intellectual in American history; his history of Reconstruction remains full of truths and understandings that our society has not yet absorbed. So I don't mean to diminish his work to note that these infographics exist in a context of other beautiful graphic design and infographics from the 19th century. Some examples: Florence Nightingale: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/florence-nightingale-infographic https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/florence-nightingale-i... 1870 census: http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?9thcensus http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?9thcensus