THE BOOK

Several researchers, scientists and designers across the globe are trying to make sense of a variety of complex networks employing an innovative mix of colors, symbols, graphics, algorithms, and interactivity to clarify, and often beautify, the clutter. By doing this they are in many ways creating the syntax of a new language. This book can be seen as the first dictionary of this new lexicon.

In Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information, Manuel Lima collects and presents almost three hundred of the most compelling examples of information design — everything from representing networks of followers on Twitter and the eighty-five recorded covers of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” to depicting interconnections between members of the Al Queda network and interactions among proteins in a human cell. Lima also looks at the long tradition of mapping complex networks, offering the first book to integrate a thorough history of network vizualization with an examination of the real-life situations from which these graphics are generated.

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THE AUTHOR



A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, nominated by Creativity magazine as "one of the 50 most creative and influential minds of 2009", Manuel Lima is a designer, researcher, teacher, and founder of VisualComplexity.com.

Manuel is a leading voice on information visualization and has spoken in numerous conferences, schools and festivals around the world, including TED, Lift, OFFF, Eyeo, Ars Electronica, IxDA Interaction, Harvard, MIT, Royal College of Art, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, ENSAD Paris, University of Amsterdam, MediaLab Prado Madrid. He has also been featured in various magazines and newspapers, such as Wired, New York Times, Science, BusinessWeek, Creative Review, Fast Company, Forbes, Eye, Grafik, SEED, Étapes, and El País.

CONTENTS

Foreword
by Lev Manovich

Introduction

Chapter 01
The Tree of Life

Chapter 02
From Trees to Networks

Chapter 03
Decoding Networks

Chapter 04
Infinite Interconnectedness

Chapter 05
The Syntax of a New Language

Chapter 06
Complex Beauty

Chapter 07
Looking Ahead