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Space & hierarchy · Hierarchy

Layered information

Several reading levels: headline, deck, captions, data.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under space & hierarchy: how is attention distributed?

styles make it: 124
as a defining choice: 24
as a usual one: 63
now and then: 37
avoid it: 4

Styles defined by it 24

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

Hebrew Micrographyc. 895–present · Middle East & North Africa, Southern Europe, Central Europe, Western EuropeA Jewish scribal art in which lines of minute Hebrew script, usually the Masoretic notes that guard the biblical text, are written so that the line itself draws: interlaced frames and star rosettes on full carpet pages, and animals, knights, fish and grotesques in the margins.
Emblem Book (Motto, Picture & Epigram)1531–1724 · Southern Europe, Central Europe, Western EuropeA European book genre in which, from Chrestien Wechel's Paris edition of 1534 on, every page or opening repeats one fixed unit: a short motto, an allegorical picture and an explanatory verse, which only together yield a moral, amorous or religious meaning.
Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography (Bombay Metal Type)1864–present · South AsiaDevanagari as Javaji Dadaji's Bombay type foundry (1864) and Nirnaya Sagar Press (1869) cut and printed it: upright metal type with a strong headline, cut with the punch-cutter Ranoji Aru, and enough conjunct and 'Akhand' sorts to set Sanskrit, Vedic accents and Marathi whole.
Lira Popular (Chilean Illustrated Verse Broadsheets)1866–1930 · Latin America & CaribbeanLoose verse sheets printed and sold in Chile's cities from 1866, peaking around 1890 and declining after 1920, though some were still printed into the 1940s.
Spanish Bullfight Poster (Cartel Taurino)1879–present · Southern EuropeThe Spanish bullfight poster in its illustrated form, from Marcelino de Unceta's lithographs (from 1879) to the Valencian house of Ortega, which supplied rings across Spain.
Drum Magazine & Sophiatown Photojournalism1951–1965 · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe picture magazine of Black urban Africa in the 1950s.
Arab Children's Comic Magazines (Samir to Majid)1956–present · Middle East & North AfricaArabic children's comics weeklies, from Dar al-Hilal's Samir in Cairo (1956) to Abu Dhabi's Majid (1979), mixing translated Western strips with house characters by Egyptian, Lebanese, Armenian and European artists.
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.
Amar Chitra Katha Comics1967–present · South AsiaThe Bombay comic-book series that from 1967 retold Hindu myth and epic, Buddhist and Jain tales, saints, folk legends, the jests of the court wits Birbal and Tenali Raman, and Indian history for children, in English and Indian languages, with well over 500 titles by the early 1990s.
Kinshasa Popular Painting1970–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaA school of easel painting founded in Kinshasa in the early 1970s by Chéri Samba, Moké, Chéri Chérin and Pierre Bodo, largely self-taught painters, several of them trained in Kinshasa's billboard and sign workshops.
Australian Poster Collective Screenprints1971–1994 · OceaniaScreenprinted posters from the political poster collectives and community workshops that spread across Australia from Sydney's Tin Sheds, where Earthworks began in 1971.
Cranbrook & Deconstructivist Typography1980–1998 · North AmericaGraduate-school experimentation, centred on Katherine and Michael McCoy's Cranbrook design programme, that applied post-structuralist literary theory to the page.
Jamaican Dancehall Signs & Sleeve Art1980–present · Latin America & CaribbeanThe street graphics of Jamaica's dancehall era.
ACT UP & Gran Fury AIDS Activist Graphics1987–1995 · North AmericaThe graphics of New York's AIDS activist movement: the SILENCE=DEATH poster of 1987, a pink triangle above white capitals on black, and the posters, stickers, T-shirts, billboards and bus ads of Gran Fury (1988–1995), ACT UP's 'unofficial propaganda ministry'.
Ghanaian Funeral Poster & Banner1990–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe printed death announcements of southern Ghana, also found elsewhere in West Africa: colour posters, mostly A2, pasted on walls, trees, poles and vehicles, and by the mid-2010s large PVC banners hung at the family house.
Nigerian Pentecostal Crusade Poster & Billboard1990–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe roadside adverts of Nigeria's Pentecostal and independent churches: billboards, banners and posters on poles, walls and bridges announcing crusades, revivals, conventions and night vigils.
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.
Japanese Dense Web Design1999–present · East AsiaThe information-packed look of Japan's big portals, shops, airlines and ministries: three or more narrow columns of boxed modules, crowded with small Japanese text, blue links, tiny thumbnails, dated news lists and rotating ad banners, in bright colours on a white page.
Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay2006–present · East AsiaThe bullet-comment layer of Japanese and Chinese video sites, begun on Niconico in December 2006 and taken up by AcFun and Bilibili in 2008–2009.
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.
Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons (Latin American Food Warning Seals)2016–present · Latin America & CaribbeanA state warning system stacked on commercial food packs.
VTuber Avatar and Stream Graphics2016–present · East Asia, Global / networkedThe graphic kit of virtual YouTubers, streamers who perform behind an animated anime-style character instead of their own face.

Styles that often use it 63

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

Styles that use it now and then 37

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.

Column gridin 38 of 124
Authoritative & institutionalin 55 of 124
Rules & barsin 49 of 124
Offset printingin 72 of 124
Naturalistic depictionin 60 of 124
Rational & objectivein 37 of 124

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in space & hierarchy