Skip to content

The percentage of excellence in book – reblog

I recently asked the guys at the Data Science class at GA to bring a good example of a “daft graph” and they all did that with gusto. As usual, there was a certain cable news channel that was mentioned a lot of times for their misleading use of graphics.

However,  there was one example that an attendees sent from a blog by Matt Reed and it was so great that I could not help re-posting the blog here. The original can be seen in this site.

 

The percentage of excellence in books…

1919 – Extracts from an Investigation into the Physical Properties of Books as They Are At Present Published. The Society of Calligraphers, Boston.
This is a small pamphlet that was designed and authored by the graphic designer W.A. Dwiggins  and his cousin L.B. Sigfried. It pilloried the format of books and his concern for the poor methods of printing trade books in the US at that time.
The book was published by the imaginary  Society of Calligraphers and the stinging investigation was a hoax cooked up by Dwiggins – nevertheless it did have an effect on publishing in the US following its wide distribution.
The graph by Dwiggins shows the reduction in book quality since 1910.