Rating: 
Summary: Useful for thinking, useful for doing
Review: Like Horn's earlier (and very good) work Mapping Hypertext, this book looks like it was written in Powerpoint. But it's hard to object to this nit since the book delivers so many important and useful ideas. It's fun to dip into, but rewards reading all the way through (imagine that). Horn's notion of visual language is much deeper than the meaning that's been floating around the web industry lately ("visual language = templates, palettes, guidlines"). "Language" in this case is not a metaphor, it's the right term for what's really going on when people use graphics to communicate. The book does a better job of laying out the consequences and benefits of thinking in this way than anything else I've seen. Practical material organized into a linguistic framework: building blocks and constructs, semantics, pragmatics. Horn did a ton of research, and has done us a huge favor by packaging it so thoughtfully. I've heard Bill Verplank say this book is "more important than Tufte." Maybe so, maybe so.
Rating:
Summary: Love/Hate reviews
Review: People seem to either love Bob Horn's book "Visual Language" or they hate it. Look at the reviews here on Amazon! The key questions is: Why such a polarizing? To me it means that Horn has written a paradigm-busting, pathfinding, boundary-crossing, far-out book -- one that removes our blinders from a phenomenon that is happening all around us, namely a new international, auxiliary language that is emerging. No wonder it arouses controversy. Some of the top people in interface design, technical writing, information design and web design have written 5-star reviews for Visual Language on Amazon. They praise its exploration of a whole new territory, and like its systematic treatment of the new syntax, semantics and pragmatics of this language. And they note that Horn is not only describing a trend, but pushing the envelope a bit further. The detractors seem to be graphic artists who are threatened by Horn's deliberately provocative use of clip art. Or they are people who don't like it that Horn has moved beyond his accomplishment in single-handedly inventing the whole field Information Mapping and structured writing. They want to keep Horn in his box. But some of the best selling books of the last decade have been written in visual language. David Macaulay's "The Way Things Work" is perhaps the most famous example. Many designers relish the new "texture" of Horn's book -- a texture that results from the dramatic change in the ratio of images to text. Horn is saying bluntly and explicitly, "your communication in visual language has got to reflect what words do best and what images do best -- when they are working together". Horn not only expounds on that message but shows us how it will look on every page. And he explains the systematics of it. This bothers a lot of people. And it excites even more of us.
Rating:
Summary: Love/Hate reviews
Review: People seem to either love Bob Horn's book "Visual Language" or they hate it. Look at the reviews here on Amazon! The key questions is: Why such a polarizing? To me it means that Horn has written a paradigm-busting, pathfinding, boundary-crossing, far-out book -- one that removes our blinders from a phenomenon that is happening all around us, namely a new international, auxiliary language that is emerging. No wonder it arouses controversy. Some of the top people in interface design, technical writing, information design and web design have written 5-star reviews for Visual Language on Amazon. They praise its exploration of a whole new territory, and like its systematic treatment of the new syntax, semantics and pragmatics of this language. And they note that Horn is not only describing a trend, but pushing the envelope a bit further. The detractors seem to be graphic artists who are threatened by Horn's deliberately provocative use of clip art. Or they are people who don't like it that Horn has moved beyond his accomplishment in single-handedly inventing the whole field Information Mapping and structured writing. They want to keep Horn in his box. But some of the best selling books of the last decade have been written in visual language. David Macaulay's "The Way Things Work" is perhaps the most famous example. Many designers relish the new "texture" of Horn's book -- a texture that results from the dramatic change in the ratio of images to text. Horn is saying bluntly and explicitly, "your communication in visual language has got to reflect what words do best and what images do best -- when they are working together". Horn not only expounds on that message but shows us how it will look on every page. And he explains the systematics of it. This bothers a lot of people. And it excites even more of us.
Rating:
Summary: Poetry for visual thinkers
Review: Robert Horn is the Samuel Johnson and the William Shakespeare of visual literacy. He teaches us the rhetoric, grammar, and syntax and then gives us example upon example of visual wisdom. I felt like a child learning a new language; eager for every fresh term, charmed by each surprising relationship. The literati and digerati are now joined by the visulati - visual language thinkers who have mastered the principles of visual literacy. Playful & scholarly, innovative & practical, insightful & comprehensive, informative & provocative, historical & forward-looking -- I give Horn's book on Visual Language five twinkling red-yellow-green-blue-purple stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Staggeringly Distressing
Review: There is something drastically wrong here. I have to assume there truly is useful information hiding somewhere in this book, but the author has done such an exceptional job of disguising it using a variety of visually distressing tactics, that ... I have to assume it! Visual Language? There is not a single page in the entire book that is not screaming at the top of its lungs in deafening confusion. Every page contains a massive quantity of shrunken clipart, dominated by one particularly annoying graphic depiction of a board meeting. _Every_ page that contains that meeting graphic would be better off without it. Not only does it consume valuable visual space which should contain useful information (especially in a book about Visual Language), it lies at the bottoms of the pages, forcing the presentation of information which IS the focus of the page to be printed significantly smaller than its optimum. I physically reject this book. If you need to know how to visually present information in a manner which will not cause your clientele to bolt from the room screaming and clutching their eyes, read the Edward Tufte triumvirate.
Rating:
Summary: A valuable reference for visual communication
Review: This book is a valuable reference in educational field. As information explodes in drastic speed, we need to adopt new means of communication to enhance the interactivity among people and also with the computers. But it seems that the Eastern hasn't realized the needs bringing up with such a change.
Rating:
Summary: A valuable reference for visual communication
Review: This book is a valuable reference in educational field. As information explodes in drastic speed, we need to adopt new means of communication to enhance the interactivity among people and also with the computers. But it seems that the Eastern hasn't realized the needs bringing up with such a change.
Rating:
Summary: A seminal work for the right audience
Review: This is not a book on layout and design, so if you are in that segment you will probably not like this book. The author's intent is to develop a visual approach for conveying information. The approach itself is a combination of pictures and words structured in a format similar to a comic strip or storyboard. This approach has merit, although it breaks many layout and design rules for aesthetics. This probably accounts for the wide chasm that divides the previous reviewers. Regardless of whether you buy into the entire approach the main value of this book lies in the education you will receive in the effective use of shapes and images to convey meaning. Prior to reading this book I used intuition, previous experience and a lot of examples when designing documents that relied heavily on graphics. I came away from this book with the following: (1) a clear idea of how to integrate words, images and shapes to effectively communicate ideas and concepts. (2) Cogitative aspects of certain shapes and forms, singularly or in combination, as metaphors for time, speed and other qualities that you want to impart. (3) How to effectively use space in a diagram to convey information - the chapter on the vocabulary of space, including distance, placement in frames and other spatial techniques was worth the price of the book to me. (4) The ways to develop different diagrams using the same basic information served as an idea catalog for me and has greatly influenced my approach to information visualization. An additional benefit I personally gained from this book is that it provided me with a solid foundation that makes Edward Tufte's beautifully produced and seminal books more understandable. Before reading this book I struggled with Tufte's Envisioning Information, but did not comprehend many of the subtleties. Armed with the knowledge gained from Visual Language I revisited Tufte's book and saw its beauty and genius. This has added the dimension of aesthetics to the way I produce graphics. So, while this book breaks a plethora of rules in page layout and design, and the examples are not visually appealing, it does give an approach for effectively conveying information. If you want to understand how to effectively integrate words, images and shapes to convey highly technical concepts or information you will find some excellent ideas in this book, as well as gain an understanding of how they all fit together on a more fundamental level. I give it five stars for the profound influence it has had on my thinking and recommend it to those of us who are not graphic artists.
Rating:
Summary: A seminal work for the right audience
Review: This is not a book on layout and design, so if you are in that segment you will probably not like this book. The author's intent is to develop a visual approach for conveying information. The approach itself is a combination of pictures and words structured in a format similar to a comic strip or storyboard. This approach has merit, although it breaks many layout and design rules for aesthetics. This probably accounts for the wide chasm that divides the previous reviewers. Regardless of whether you buy into the entire approach the main value of this book lies in the education you will receive in the effective use of shapes and images to convey meaning. Prior to reading this book I used intuition, previous experience and a lot of examples when designing documents that relied heavily on graphics. I came away from this book with the following: (1) a clear idea of how to integrate words, images and shapes to effectively communicate ideas and concepts. (2) Cogitative aspects of certain shapes and forms, singularly or in combination, as metaphors for time, speed and other qualities that you want to impart. (3) How to effectively use space in a diagram to convey information - the chapter on the vocabulary of space, including distance, placement in frames and other spatial techniques was worth the price of the book to me. (4) The ways to develop different diagrams using the same basic information served as an idea catalog for me and has greatly influenced my approach to information visualization. An additional benefit I personally gained from this book is that it provided me with a solid foundation that makes Edward Tufte's beautifully produced and seminal books more understandable. Before reading this book I struggled with Tufte's Envisioning Information, but did not comprehend many of the subtleties. Armed with the knowledge gained from Visual Language I revisited Tufte's book and saw its beauty and genius. This has added the dimension of aesthetics to the way I produce graphics. So, while this book breaks a plethora of rules in page layout and design, and the examples are not visually appealing, it does give an approach for effectively conveying information. If you want to understand how to effectively integrate words, images and shapes to convey highly technical concepts or information you will find some excellent ideas in this book, as well as gain an understanding of how they all fit together on a more fundamental level. I give it five stars for the profound influence it has had on my thinking and recommend it to those of us who are not graphic artists.
Rating:
Summary: A uniquely useful and challenging learning adventure
Review: Visual language, combining text and images, has been around for a long time -- but only in the last two decades, with the rise of desktop publishing and design, has it become commonly accessible. Horn, a pioneer in the field (and inventor of Information Mapping), wants us to acknowledge the power inherent in this melange. To communicate his case, Horn uses visual language. This makes the book twice as interesting: you, the reader, learn about visual language as you experience it. This book is full of discoveries and demonstrations. Begin it on a lazy weekend and you may not want to stop until you're done. It's challenging that Horn uses clipart throughout, to make the point that one need not be an artist to write visual language. That may be so; but clipart, despite the ingenuity of its authors, has limitations, especially conceptual banality. Horn is a master; others of us might have more difficulty treating complex issues with visual language based on clipart. No matter. One can easily envision a more subtle and sublime form of visual communication using more eloquent graphics. VISUAL LANGUAGE remains fun and informative from beginning to end. This book is both a text and a how-to. Read and apply it well!
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