From Typos to Triumphs
From Typos to Triumphs
Before-and-after looks at how my remastered "directors cut" enhances clarity, corrects errors, and adds new insights
To hype my INFO WE TRUST Kickstarter I’m stepping up this newsletter’s cadence. This week, after a brief campaign update, we will tour what makes this new edition so spectacular, starting with a behind-the-scenes look at content and story.
One of the secrets of crowdfunding is that campaign timelines follow a particular curve:
⬆️ IMPULSE: flurry of excitement at campaign launch
➡️ PLATEAU: more backers trickle in
⬆️ SPIKE: excitement returns to help cross goal threshold
↗️ CLIMB: many more join in once goal is secured
After one week, we are over 70% of the way to the fundraising goal (green line) for my remastered Info We Trust. This puts us right in the PLATEAU region of the curve:
It’s risky to linger in the plateau because web algorithms may decide that the project has no recent energy and de-rank the project. Today is the most helpful moment to reserve your copy of Info We Trust.
Pledging now will get us out of the plateau and back to excitement. I appreciate your enthusiasm.
Remastering content
Info We Trust, Remastered is my director’s cut—an edition that fully realizes my original vision, free from outside meddling. I’ve remastered all aspects of the book: its content (text, marginalia, illustrations), design (layout, color system, typography, etc.), and production (materials and construction).
It is a privilege to be able to correct and improve the book’s original content. I approached this opportunity with deliberate care, ensuring the preservation of the book’s original humanistic spirit, optimistic attitude, and timeless perspective.
As with any next edition, I corrected errors (it’s T.S. Eliot, not T.S. Elliot). However, this remaster goes far beyond merely fixing errata.
Info We Trust was founded on the intersection between my study of design history and my own consulting practice making charts. My expertise in both fields has deepened over the past few years, enabling me to (1) eliminate extraneous details that overshadowed the essential, and (2) add flourishes that further illuminate the book’s core message.
The most fun part of these detail edits was selecting fresh marginalia for the sidebars of the book. For example, here are a few new voices that will debut in Info We Trust Remastered:
“Many of the problems involving the element of time may be solved graphically.”
—Matilda Auerbach, 1910
“A world turning to a saner and richer civilization will be a world turning to charts.”
—Karl G. Karsten, 1923
“Statistical data is usually tedious to the reader, but sometimes a whole story lies behind its cut-and-dried austerity.”
—Konstantinos Doxiadis, 1946
On a more structural level, the remaster also provides an opportunity to polish narrative flow and language. In some cases, this meant heeding the advice of New Yorker editor William Shawn and removing my opening preambles, thus cutting to the exciting core of my arguments more swiftly.
(This is good advice for any communication media: openings are often written more to help authors organize their thoughts and less to aid audiences.)
Most dramatically, I’ve removed the book’s original opening spread in favor of starting with this declaration:
Conveying information we trust is a dynamic activity that puts our world into forms that are strong and true.
In addition to making corrections, sprinkling-in new flourishes, and re-arranging content, I have also created a handful of new sections. Each represents a topic that aligns with the book’s core ethos, but was previously unaddressed. These addtions do not cover recent phenomena such as Covid-19 or artificial intelligence, which, although highly interesting, do not suit the book’s temperament.
Info We Trust now includes new sections on:
graphic composition design
visualization of uncertainty
how to value charts, including discussion of value descriptors like ‘clarity’
The final bullet inspired the book’s new subtitle: How to Create Value with Data Graphics.
The new subtitle reflects my personal embrace of data graphics instead of data visualization. Visualization is a recent and clunky word that is awkward to say, awkward to read, and better describes what happens in your head than what happens on the canvas.
In upcoming newsletters, I will explore enhancements to the book’s design and production materials. Thank you for reserving your copy of Info We Trust, Remastered.
Onward!
—RJ