Jacques Bertin Quotes

And now, at the end of the twentieth century, with the pressure of modern information and the advances of data processing, graphics is passing through a new and fundamental stage. The great difference between the graphic representation of yesterday, which was poorly dissociated from the figurative image, and the graphics of tomorrow, is the disappearance of the congential fixity of the image.

The author has the reputation of being against color. I am indeed against color when it masks incompetence; when it allows the superimposition of characteristics to the point of absurdity; when people believe it capable of representing ordered data.

The plane is the mainstay of all graphic representation. It is so familiar that its properties seem self-evident, but the most familiar things are often the most poorly understood. The plane is homogeneous and has two dimensions. The visual consequences of these properties must be fully explored.

[The special properties of visual perception of data]... is the visual means of resolving logical problems.

The aim of the graphic is to make the relationship among previously defined sets appear.

As with any graphic, networks are used in order to discover pertinent troups of to inform others of the groups and structures discovered. It is a good means of displaying structures, However, it ceases to be a means of discovery when the elements are numerous. The figure rapidly becomes complex, illegible and untransformable.

The use of computers shouldn’t ignore the objectives of graphics, that are:

If, in order to obtain a correct and complete answer to a given question, all other things being equal, one construction requires a shorter observation time than another construction, we can say that it is more efficient for this question.

Graphic representation constitutes one of the basic sign-systems conceived by the human mind for the purposes of storing, understanding, and communicating essential information. As a "language" for the eye, graphics benefits from the ubiquitous properties of visual perception. As a monosemic system, it forms the rational part of the world of images.

When the correspondences on the plane can be established between:

[Bertin's 'color' refers to] the repertoire of colored sensations which can be produced at equal value.

Value perception dominates color perception.

To analyse graphic representation precisely, it is helpful to distinguish it from musical, verbal and mathematical notations, all of which are perceived in a linear or temporal sequence. The graphic image also differs from figurative representation essentially polysemic, and from the animated image, governed by the laws of cinematographic time. Within the boundaries of graphics fall the fields of networks, diagrams and maps. The domain of graphic imagery ranges from the depiction of atomic structures to the representation of galaxies and extends into the spheres of topography and cartography.

Data is transformed into graphics to understand. A map, a diagram are documents to be interrogated. But understanding means integrating all of the data. In order to do this it’s necessary to reduce it to a small number of elementary data. This is the objective of the “data treatment” be it graphic or mathematic.

Information is the reply to a question.