Thumbs, Beasts & Thieves is Andy Kirk's first book in a trilogy about Fee and the world of Blessaeb. Making up tall stories for clients who own international brands has been an excellent apprenticeship for him, selling everything from chocolate biscuits and tea, to beer and mayonnaise. His ideas come from the places he visits and the fantastical things that he sees in nature, real life and from his keen interest in history. His head is full of useless information that he hopes will one day go into the melting pot for one of his stories.
This book is a great primer for a beginner like myself just entering and exploring the world of data visualization, though I can easily see how it can be a great guide for practitioners and experts as well due to the clear methodology and sound reasoning. It has given me a proven framework to plan, consider, design, implement and evaluate data visualizations. I especially appreciate chapter 2 (Setting the Purpose and Identifying Key Factors) and chapter 5's taxonomy of the various data visualization devices and methods. Thank you Mr. Andy Kirk for sharing your knowledge.
Didn't know before that there is a discipline specific for data visualization design.. wow!
..and although I'm not a designer, and all what I needed from the book is only chapter 5, I've read the book fully, as I usually enjoy design books and find in it general lessons for life!
An excellent, complete coverage of data visualization techniques with a large collection of charts, graphs, maps and other ways to visually display information.