Edward Tufte: Beautiful Evidence

Information design guru Edward Tufte will discuss his theories of visual thinking and analytical design in a lecture for Intelligence Squared in London on May 19. Tickets sold out in a flash but the event will be livestreamed for £2.99. Tufte, who has been described by the New York Times as the "da Vinci of data" and by Business Week as the "Galileo of graphics", was appointed to advise Barack Obama on ways to present to the American public how $787 billion in recovery stimulus funds was being spent. He is renowned within the design community for his scathing criticism of PowerPoint, and his multiple award-winning 2006 book, Beautiful Evidence. During the lecture, a rare appearance in the UK, he will explain the art of the visual presentation: how empirical evidence in whatever form it may take - words, numbers, images, diagrams, still or moving - can be turned into effective means of communicating information. And he will argue that both the making and the consuming of presentations are moral as well as intellectual activities. http://www.intelligencesquared.com/live