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Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps 1st Edition

by Jacques Bertin (Author)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 44 ratings
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Originally published in French in 1967, Semiology of Graphics holds a significant place in the theory of information design. Founded on Jacques Bertin’s practical experience as a cartographer, Part One of this work is an unprecedented attempt to synthesize principles of graphic communication with the logic of standard rules applied to writing and topography. Part Two brings Bertin’s theory to life, presenting a close study of graphic techniques including shape, orientation, color, texture, volume, and size in an array of more than 1,000 maps and diagrams.

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  1. ISBN-10
    1589482611
  2. ISBN-13
    978-1589482616
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Esri Press
  5. Publication date
    November 1, 2010
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    8.92 x 1.22 x 10.7 inches
  8. Print length
    456 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jacques Bertin is a French cartographer and theorist. In 1954 he founded the Cartographic Laboratory of the École pratique des hautes études and in 1957 he was named director of education. In 1967, Bertin became a professor at the Sorbonne, and in 1974 he was appointed director of education and director of the Geographical Laboratory of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales which is part of the École pratique des hautes etudes. In the late 1970s he became head of research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique. Bertin is an internationally recognized authority on the analytic study of graphics.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Esri Press; 1st edition (November 1, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 456 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1589482611
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1589482616
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.18 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.92 x 1.22 x 10.7 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 44 ratings

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Jacques Bertin

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Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
44 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

RJ Andrews
5.0 out of 5 stars Augment natural intelligence!
Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2019
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A colossal volume by cartographer and theorist Jacques Bertin. The first 15 of its over 400 pages delivered the most bang. Read the introduction to understand the book’s general theory and spirit. Then use the Contents to navigate to what interests you most.

Like the earlier Enlightenment informers, Bertin makes strong connections between geographic maps and abstract statistical charts. I really like how he emphasizes the importance of producing informative singular images—temporal units of meaningful visual perception—while also negotiating how no one image can reveal everything.

Bertin’s uses the word energy to describe the total salience of how data appears to us. It set the stage for many future authors to riff on their own systems of what Bertin called retinal variables: design dimensions that each have the ability to change how the value of a data mark hits the sensors of the eye’s retina. They include position, size, darkness, hue, texture, shape, and orientation. Info We Trust references Bertin’s work several times, and quotes him directly once: “The entire problem is one of augmenting this natural intelligence.”
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Michael Dubakov
5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2011
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This is a remarkable book. I've read Tafte books 2 years ago and after that was unable to find anything interesting or new in the Visualization field. This book was the first one that is comparable with Tufte work and even exceeds them. It provides very clear and beautiful theory of data visualization that you can apply on practice immediately. Yes, it is quite old, but it is absolutely relevant and has "fresh" feeling.
4 people found this helpful
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Stephen Redihan
5.0 out of 5 stars Impressive
Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2014
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I knew the reputation of this work. It's a very impressive reference source. I've found it to be a necessary volume on my visualizations book shelf.

I do wish I could find some companoion sources that address the digital formats we live and work with.
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Mauricio
5.0 out of 5 stars Must have
Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2013
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The book is a very good guide for the basis on how to construct diagrams and other graphics. The language used makes the book a little boring to read, but is absolutely necessary to understand the concepts behind the design of a graphic, infography, diagram, etc.
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Rafael Castro
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic!
Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2015
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It's a classic. Every Information Designer must have one copy of this book
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Howard Wainer
5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterwork back in print
Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2010
In the preface to the 1983 translation of the Semiology I emphasized the book''s importance as a guide to the future, for it seemed clear that we were on the cusp of an explosion in the use of graphical methods for both the exploration and communication of complex data. This prediction came true. In the intervening 27 years a huge amount of work has been accomplished to help us use graphical methods profitably. This work has been in hardware that can produce graphical displays quickly and inexpensively; software that can translate data files into graphical representations with the click of a mouse; and statistical and perceptual research that helps us know how to use these tools well.

Let me briefly comment only on the latter two aspects. I choose to refrain from any commentary on hardware because my remarks would almost surely be out of date before they were printed. So first, graphical software: thirty years ago I was enthusiastic and optimistic about the future of graphical use, for, I thought, software will be built that has sensible default options, so that when the software is set on maximal stupidity (ours not its), a reasonable graph would result. The software would force you to wring its metaphorical neck if you wanted to produce some horrible pseudo 3-D multicolored pie chart. Alas, I couldn''t have been more wrong. Instead of making wise, evidence-based, choices, default options seem to have been selected by the same folks who deny the holocaust, global warming and evolution. I could not have imagined back then that the revolution in data gathering, analysis and display that was taking place in the last decades of the 20th century would have resulted in the complexity of the modern world being conveyed in bullet-points augmented by PowerPoint and Excel graphics.

The irony of this sorry result is that since the original publication of the Semiology there have been many wonderful books on graphics ' each building on the work of Jacques Bertin paired with John Tukey''s practical epistemology. Bill Cleveland's work uses a combination of statistical savvy and experimental evidence to support and expand upon Bertin''s foundation. Edward Tufte''s brilliant series of books that self-exemplify the advice he gives on how to make evidence beautiful. Leland Wilkinson''s Grammar provides a codification that is invaluable for both how to think about the structure of graphics and how to automate their construction. And my own work, that has mixed together statistics, graphics and history to provide illustrations of what we can accomplish with this marvelous medium. Indeed, the growing popularity and importance of graphics even made it viable for a publisher to reprint William Playfair''s 18th century Atlas, the work that began it all.

But despite this accumulating graphic wisdom, practice continues to lag. I cannot help but believe that had Bertin''s masterwork not fallen out of print some of today''s graphical ignorance would have been ameliorated. This view was surely shared by the publishing arm of L'École Practique des Hautes Études, who republished a 4th edition of the French version in 2005. At about the same time the University of Wisconsin Press was seriously considering the republication of the English translation. Anne McKenna. one of their editors, explained,

"'University of Wisconsin Press had been considering bringing Semiology of Graphics back into print several years ago and had begun work to bring that about, checking into renewing rights from the French publisher, looking into arranging for a translation of new material from a newer French edition, getting cost estimates, etc. However, several retirements and staff changes sent the project to the back burner for a while.'"

This delay was unfortunate because the market for a republication seemed more than ready. A few months ago, on Amazon, I noticed that one could get a new copy for $550 and the price for a used one began at $399. These remarkable prices merely reflect supply and demand, for those of us who have our own copies are loath to part with them. Happily ESRI decided to do it. They approached the University of Wisconsin Press, and, as Anne McKenna related,

"'As we re-opened the file to get the ball rolling again, we were contacted by ESRI expressing their interest in licensing the book for a new English-language edition. When we realized that ESRI had a strong publishing program in cartography and cartographic design, the UW Press's director felt that ESRI would be a better home for Bertin's book, where it would receive much more active promotion. 'We well know that the Semiology of Graphics is an important book with an eager audience, and it seemed to us that ESRI would do a fine job of bringing the new edition to that audience.'"

This publishing generosity is as welcome as it is rare. The reappearance of the Semiology did not come too soon, for our need for improving the quality of displays increases apace with the increase in the number of graphs being produced. I am certain that the quality of displays that are prepared to communicate quantitative phenomena will improve in direct proportion to the extent to which this book is read and internalized by those who generate graphics, and, more importantly, by those who develop the software that are used to produce them.

The body of the text in this edition is identical to the previous edition: what is new is the postface, which is an update of work done over the decades since the Semiology was previously published and Bertin gives a chronology explaining what is new. But what is new is beside the point, for the original work was far ahead of its time. I remember many years ago as Bertin, Bill Berg (the principal translator) and I were discussing the translation Berg said, of one of Bertin''s expressions "Ça ne se dit pas, en Anglais" (We don't say that in English); Bertin replied: "Ne vous inquiétez pas: si ça ne se dit pas, ça se dira" (Don't worry; if you don't say it now, eventually you will).

Many of us are saying it now, and with the republication of the Semiology, many more soon will be.

References

Cleveland, W. S. (1994). The elements of graphing data. Summit, NJ: Hobart Press.

Cleveland, W. S. (1994). Visualizing data. Summit, NJ: Hobart Press.

Playfair, W. (1801). The Commercial and Political Atlas, & The Statistical Breviary. Edited and introduced by Howard Wainer and Ian Spence. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Tufte, E. R. (1983/2000). The visual display of quantitative information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

Tufte, E. R. (1990). Envisioning information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

Tufte, E. R. (1996). Visual explanations. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press .

Tufte, E. R. (2006). Beautiful evidence. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press .

Tukey, J. W. (1977). Exploratory data analysis. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Wainer, H. (1997). Visual Revelations: Graphical Tales of Fate and Deception from Napoleon Bonaparte to Ross Perot. New York: Copernicus Books, (reprinted in 2000, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).

Wainer, H. (2005). Graphic Discovery: A Trout in the Milk and Other Visual Adventures. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Wainer, H. (2009). Picturing the Uncertain World: How to Understand, Communicate and Control Uncertainty through Graphical Display. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Wilkinson, L. (2005). The Grammar of Graphics (2nd edition). New York: Springer-Verlag.
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Stan
5.0 out of 5 stars Confused
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2011
I don't mean to dock this book any of its venerable 5 stars because I think I bought this book in error. After reading that this was Tufte's inspiration, I was expecting a tour-de-force compendium on graphics, drawing, and clarity of visual information.

Instead of clarity I opened a tangle of texts and illegible inky charts, line drawings, maps, and hard-to-decipher diagrams that look like they were reproduced on a 1985 Xerox machine. There are some gems in there regarding color, shape, and line weight, but only a few practical map examples of France and Europe. Everything is crowded, thick with ink, and you won't get far without reading the text.

Perhaps I'm taking this book out of context and its historical significance, but anyone who has ever had to draw any graphic information will know most of these lessons subconsciously. Unlike Tufte's Envisioning Information, a lot of the drawings are hard to understand quickly and intuit the theory behind them.

Should a book on graphics require pages of verbal explanations? I think Tufte would say no, and I think he would have made an excellent editor to Semiology of Graphics.
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Josiel de Alencar Guedes
5.0 out of 5 stars Um clássico
Reviewed in Brazil on August 1, 2019
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Desconheço um livro melhor que trate sobre semiologia gráfica. Muito indicado para quem estuda e pesquisa na cartografia.
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Fernando Fraenza
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente
Reviewed in Spain on August 9, 2013
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He podido observar que se trata de una re-edición magnífica de un libro que ya es clásico en la disciplina. Esta edición hace honor a la importancia que este texto, por sí solo ha ido adquiriendo a lo largo de los años.
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book
Reviewed in Italy on July 1, 2013
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Jacques Bertin's book provides an exhaustive and perceptive analysis of the semiology of diagrams and maps. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this topic.
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Riccardo Vanni
3.0 out of 5 stars Grafica?
Reviewed in Italy on February 23, 2019
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Ben concepito. Bello da tenere in mano e da sfogliare, ma attenzione, è molto ‘tecnico.’
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