Not Just About the Photographs – Good Scientific and Engineering Images
October 13th, 2008Posted by: admin
The National Science Foundation and Science magazine collaborate on an annual Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. Awards are given in five categories: Pictures/Photography, Drawing/Illustrations, Explanatory Graphics, Interactive and Non-interactive media. You can peruse the winners, and when I did I was struck about the lack of explanation in the images. Sure, the images are arresting, but I think more directed or explicit communications ought to receive more attention. New kinds of charts and graphs, and new forms of description that are beyond charts and graphs, are things worth encouraging. Winners like this revisualization of the bible are what I’d like to see more of. That they receive little attention and less explanation in the press and promotional material is frustrating and disappointing.
Perhaps someone at NSF or Science could be introduced to the works of Edward Tufte. Besides demonstrating to the world that PowerPoint is indeed evil, he’s done a fair amount of work on the design of effective visual communications – on using the technology properly to get the message(s) across.