Visual Function: An Introduction to Information Design

Rating:
Summary: Definitely, not a book.
Review: ... it's more of a pamphlet. Mijksenaar provides some nice examples and interesting ideas, but I wanted much more. Once can read this "book" in less than an hour.

Rating:
Summary: It's not really a book ...
Review: ... it's more of a pamphlet. Mijksenaar provides some nice examples and interesting ideas, but I wanted much more. Once can read this "book" in less than an hour.

Rating:
Summary: It's not really a book ...
Review: ... it's more of a pamphlet. Mijksenaar provides some nice examples and interesting ideas, but I wanted much more. Once can read this "book" in less than an hour.

Rating:
Summary: Definitely, not a book.
Review: Mijksenaar provides some interesting ideas but not much depth. Very disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: A manifesto and a paradox, sort of.
Review: This small, profusely illustrated book is, well, a personal manifesto against bad informational design. Mijksenaar does not take prisoners: his case studies (of bad design) include glitches by some of the most prominent dutch designers. Healthy, very healthy. There are some surprises, especially if your infodesign paradigm is the London underground map. The book is also a paradox, though, in that it is itself badly designed. By that I don't mean the shape, color, printing, which are pretty, but its logical content structure, which is confusing. Because it is more of a (needed) rant against bad info design, I call it a manifesto. It is an optimistic manifesto, and Visual Function is well worth reading, if only because US designers would profit from getting to know their their dutch counterparts better.