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Imagery · Systematic

Diagram & data

Charts, maps, isotypes, technical drawings.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under imagery: what kind of pictures, if any?

styles make it: 39
as a defining choice: 9
as a usual one: 8
now and then: 22
avoid it: 1

Styles defined by it 9

For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.

Thai Yantra (Yant) Diagrams1700–present · Southeast AsiaThai protective diagrams in which Pali formulae, written in Khom, a sacred script derived from Khmer, are packed into squares, circles, triangles, spires and the outlines of Buddhas, monks and tigers, often framed by lines of script.
London Transport Design1908–1966 · Western EuropeThe design programme Frank Pick built for London's Underground from 1908 and the London Passenger Transport Board (1933–40), continued by Harold Hutchison (1947–66).
Isotype Pictorial Statistics1925–1971 · Central Europe, Western EuropeA method of visual education developed by Otto Neurath, Marie Neurath (Reidemeister) and Gerd Arntz in Red Vienna from 1925, which turns statistics into rows of identical pictograms where a greater quantity is shown by more signs, never by bigger ones.
British Road Signage (Kinneir & Calvert)1958–present · Western EuropeThe national sign system Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert designed for Britain's motorways, first used on the Preston By-pass in 1958, and through the Worboys Committee for all roads from 1 January 1965.
Western Desert Iconography1971–present · OceaniaThe acrylic painting movement that took form at Papunya in 1971, when men there painted the Honey Ant Dreaming on the school wall and then on board, carrying an older practice of sand, body and ceremonial designs into lasting form. 'Western Desert' is an umbrella name: the movement also includes Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Arrernte painters of the Central Desert.
Fantasy User Interface (FUI) & Sci-Fi HUD1999–present · North America, Western Europe, Global / networkedFantasy user interfaces are the screen graphics of films and series: computer screens, holograms and helmet HUDs made to be watched for a few seconds, not used.
Polish Information Picture Book (Dwie Siostry)2008–present · Eastern EuropeMostly large-format information picture books made since 2008 by the Warsaw publisher Dwie Siostry with young illustrators led by Aleksandra and Daniel Mizieliński, graduates of the city's Academy of Fine Arts: atlases, cross-sections, labyrinths, activity books and wordless seek-and-find board books.
Newsroom Data Graphics & Scrollytelling2009–present · North America, Western EuropeThe house style of newspaper graphics desks since about 2009–2011 (the New York Times graphics desk, D3.js, the Guardian Datablog): conventional charts drawn from the data, on a white or pale paper ground with light grey gridlines and no axis titles, lines labelled directly in place of a legend where possible and short annotations saying what to look at.
Data Humanism2014–present · Southern Europe, North America, Western EuropeAn information-design approach that draws data rather than charting it, treating numbers as personal, approximate and human.

Styles that often use it 8

A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.

Styles that use it now and then 22

An occasional choice in these styles.

It often goes with

Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.

Modular gridin 24 of 39
Rectilinearin 26 of 39
Rational & objectivein 20 of 39
Rules & barsin 22 of 39
Grotesque & neo-grotesquein 21 of 39
Geometric primitivesin 23 of 39

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Surrealist Graphics1924–1960

Other choices in imagery