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  • ‘To see at one glance all the centuries that have passed’ - early visualisations of historical time

Boyd Davis, Stephen, 2017, Book Section, ‘To see at one glance all the centuries that have passed’ - early visualisations of historical time In: Black, Alison, Luna, Paul, Lund, Ole and Walker, Sue, (eds.) Information design: research and practice. Routledge, London, pp. 3-22. ISBN 978-1-4724-3070-0

Abstract or Description:

This chapter focuses on the visualisation of historical time, illustrated by key examples from the eighteenth century when the modern timeline was invented. We are fortunate in having not only surviving examples of printed timelines from the period but also explanations written by their makers, revealing the ambitions they had for visualisation. An important divergence is evident, between those who want to use rhetorical visual metaphors to tell a graphical story, and those who prefer to let the data ‘speak for itself’, allowing patterns to emerge from the distribution of data points across a surface.

Keywords: timeline, chronographics

Official URL: https://www.routledge.com/products/isbn/9781472430...
Subjects: Other > Historical and Philosophical studies > V100 History by period > V140 Modern History > V143 Modern History 1700-1799
Other > Historical and Philosophical studies > V300 History by topic > V380 History of Science
Creative Arts and Design > W200 Design studies > W210 Graphic Design > W213 Visual Communication
School or Centre: School of Design
Date Deposited: 26 Jun 2015 11:41
Last Modified: 09 Nov 2018 14:27
URI: https://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/id/eprint/1699
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