Jacques Bertin Quotes

Value perception dominates color perception.

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.

Information is the reply to a question.

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

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

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.