The goal is to provide analytical tools that will last students a lifetime

I was writing a chapter of Beautiful Evidence on the subject of the sculptural pedestal, which led to my thinking about what's up on the pedestal - the great leader.

Confusion and clutter are failures of design, not attributes of information. And so the point is to find design strategies that reveal detail and complexity - rather than to fault the data for an excess of complication. Or, worse, to fault viewers for a lack of understanding.

The idea of trying to create things that last-forever knowledge-has guided my work for a long time now.

Clutter is not an attribute of information, clutter is a failure of design...fix the design rather than stripping all the detail out of the map.

What is to be sought in designs for the display of information is the clear portrayal of complexity. Not the complication of the simple; rather the task of the designer is to give visual access to the subtle and the difficult - that is, revelation of the complex.

The minimum we should hope for with any display technology is that it should do no harm.