We're inundated with small data, big data, complex data... lotsa data. And the data is THE story; it should be front and center. Data Flow depicts hundreds of stunning data viz examples. The book is aesthetically beautiful. However, several of the diagrams suffer from low data-to-ink ratios (lots of paint, little useful data)... and many are illegible and printed too small to see or require specific domain knowledge to decrypt.

Where's the data? The book proselytizes the importance of data and there ain't much raw data to be seen (or linked to).

The book designers have forgotten to treat typography as the visual hierarchy for words, the interface design for text. The type treatments and layouts are difficult to read.

Designers, engineers, statisticians, and decision-makers need data viz guidance. This book is not an academic dive into data visualization and needs to follow several of it's own rules for displaying information. But this book provokes your imagination.

Pie charts, line graphs, and diagrams are typical kinds of tools to visualize data to grasp what it is indicating and to utilize it. The exponential increase with computers in collecting, storing, and processing data has resulted in a tremendous volume of data. This data is useless unless it is put into some form such as a chart or graph giving some perspective on it. Information designers--what the individuals whose designs are seen in this book are called--create forms to capture aspects of information for the knowledge, reference, and use of individuals in different fields. These information designers design forms for information somewhat like architects now use computer technology to design a house to its future owner's specifications. Polls in political campaigns of any significant scale such as U.S. presidential campaigns are one type of familiar information gathering and information use. Polls' practical uses are obvious. They can inform candidate's about fundamental matters such as which issues to address, how to spend advertising funds, and where to make appearances.

Pie charts, line graphs, and diagrams are still used by information designers. Though these are oftentimes considerably more complex than the simple, rather skeletal ones of decades past. Today's information designers more often devise complex, multilayered, and multicolored representations which can be almost any shape and often look like a kind of op-art. New words are required for the designers to create and users to grasp the new information designs. The term "mining information" has been around for a while to connote how business and government organizations and the designers deal with masses of information. "Infotecture" is a term used for the new visual shapes for rendering volumes of information literate according to desired criteria. Readers will also learn about the newer terms of datalogy, datablocks, datasphere, datanets, and datascape which are general types of infotectures that have just about replaced the older pie charts, graphs, and such. Datanoid is a new term for designs for information on different physical, biological, medical, etc., aspects of the human body and human life. With each of the general categories of the new information designs is an interview with a leading designer. The captions for each design explain the information it is designed to make intelligible. The index contains contacts for each of the 90 or so designers whose works are featured.

The collection of hundreds of graphic designs for information brings one right up to date in this field. Like computers, globalization, and cell phones, data design--infotecture--is an element of today's complex, technology-based, interconnected world. Manufacturers in China, government agencies in Washington, and growing communities are among the kinds of diverse, widely--scattered organizations making use of it.