Tooling up for Complexity - Participatory Mapping: New Data, New Cartography - page 12

the symbolic importance of text in relation to the graphic
representation of information. Although hesitant, Priestley's
work is the first step to the use of graphs.

It is through the work of publicist William Playfair that a
more significant use of graphs appeared, with the
Commercial and Political Atlas issued in 1786. Playfair
defends the relevance of two-dimensional representations
and thereby steps out of the linearity of the previous
graphical representations. He was one of the pioneers of
using economics data in charts; he also introduced different
types of diagrams. Playfair advocated for these forms of data
representation as they are supposed to increase the
“efficiency” of the communication process; furthermore, their
summarizing properties enable the readers to “absorb more
easily” a large amount of information [HEA 02, p.127].

Figure 1.1. Chronology of external trade between England and
Scandinavia, William Playfair, Commercial and political Atlas, 1786 3

3 Image taken from the Wikipedia article on “William Playfair”,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Playfair.