Tinker, to Chance, to Edward!

The anatomy of a swing. Neato Torpedo.

via: Ask E.T.

Edward Tufte is too cool. Not in a David Carson, information-design-as-test-of-wills kind of way but in a quieter, I-want-you-to-understand-what-you're-seeing-and-be-better-for-seeing-it-and-now-you-can't-wait-to-put-the-information-to-work kind of way. Sort of the exact opposite of how I write. In a way.

If you're not familiar, he teaches Information Design at Yale and writes definitively on the subject. Basically, he's the Oracle of Delphi for truth, simpliciy and clarity in conceptual representation--print to architecture, pixels to blimpspace. Tufte has a very cool feature on his site called Ask E.T. (Scroll down for the most recent, it's where the Swing graphic came from.) The guy will actually answer your practical questions, in addition to critiquing pieces pointed out to him. The comments on his comments are uniformly quite informative, too.

Why the Fan-Club-Newsletter prose? Cuz he's wandering the countryside teaching 1 day courses, Nov. 3 thru March 4. I'm there.