From: Michael Brady <jbrady-AT-email.unc.edu>
Date: 06 Sep 2006 13:28:55 UTC   (10:28:55 AM in author's locale)
To: "The Graphics List" <graphics-AT-lists.graphicslist.org>

On Sep 6, 2006, at 10:14 AM, Anabella Wewer wrote:

>> Holmes's work, in contrast, uses those cutesy illustrations, but
>> in fairness to him, he doesn't actually distort the presentation
>> by incorrectly scaling little bales of cotton or trucks (as Tufte
>> admonishes against doing). But Holmes relies on what I regard as
>> the falsity of injecting the extraneous ingredient of "fun" into a
>> graphic.
>
> Interesting... I am generally against "cuteness" and a lot of his
> stuff seems that way. Will have to pay more attention, though. As I
> said, I have been a casual observer of his work, and that not even
> knowing it was his.

Cutesy diagrams are part of the same cultural mindset that condones
and extols the "Let's make learning fun!" approach of using Barney or
SpongeBob to chaperone the commutative property of multiplication
into their little heads, as if kids will never experience the genuine
allure of learning without being beguiled by a cartoon character.
Basically, the underlying theory of infographics and "fun learning"
is that the reader is a lout or disaffected in some way *and* the
topic is dreadfully boring in itself, so let's add some kind of "eye
drug" to make the medicine go down.

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Michael Brady
www.michaelbradydesign.com


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