This week in class, we explored various types of charts, talked about into their historical background, and discussed their application in design for visualizing data. We were taught how to create charts in excel using the data we had gathered. A graph that pique really my interest was William Playfair’s Linear Chronology from 1700 to 1824, and Charles Joseph Minard’s infographic chart showcasing Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.
Charles Joseph Minard
After seeing the way Charles communicated with this chart I sought to learn more about him, hence I proceeded to conduct a short research on this French civil engineer who also worked with infographics, he was particularly known for his innovative and influential visualizations of complex data. Charles Joseph Minard was born on 27th of March,1781, in Dijon, France. He studied at the École Polytechnique in Paris where he studied maths, engineering, and cartography. Cartography is the art and science of graphically displaying a geographical area on a chart or map. He became a successful civil engineer. His most notable achievement was the infographics he constructed in 1869, “Napoleon's March on Moscow”, Minard recreated a map illustrating Napoleon's disastrous military campaign to Russia in 1812. The graphic shows the size of Napoleon's army as it advanced and retreated, along with temperature variations and geographical features. I find this infographic very fascinating because once I understood it, it was all very clear, the fact that he incorporated temperate variations means that he went around asked survivors about their travel experience.
Fritz Kahn
Fritz Kahn was a German-Jewish physician, writer, and popular science author who became well known for his eye catching work when it came to visual communication. Born on September 29th, 1888, in Halle an der Saale, Germany. He studied medicine at the University of Friedrich Wilhelm in Berlin and later specialized in gynaecology and obstetrics. He practiced medicine for several years and eventually started venturing into communicating complex human anatomy data. Hence started displaying data in his anatomical and scientific illustrations. Kahn's most famous illustration of data was "Man as Industrial Palace" ("Der Mensch als Industriepalast"), this iconic illustration showcases that he was more than a medial practitioner, the chart showcases the human body as a complex industrial factory, with various organs represented as machines
