The Visual Elements—Design: A Handbook for Communicating Science and Engineering
The Visual Elements—Design: A Handbook for Communicating Science and Engineering
by Felice C. Frankel
University of Chicago Press, 2024 Paper: 978-0-226-82916-6 | eISBN: 978-0-226-82917-3 Library of Congress Classification Q223.F728 2024 Dewey Decimal Classification 502.2
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
With insights and examples from designers at publications from Nature to the New York Times, an essential guide to creating figures and presentations.
In this short handbook, award-winning science communicator Felice C. Frankel offers a quick guide for scientists and engineers who want to share—and better understand—their research by designing compelling graphics for journal submissions, grant applications, presentations, and posters. Like all the books in the Visual Elements series, this handbook is also a training tool for researchers. Distilling her celebrated books and courses to the essentials, Frankel shows scientists and engineers, from students to primary investigators, the importance of thinking visually. This crucial volume in the Visual Elements series offers a wealth of engaging design examples. Case studies and advice from designers at prestigious publications and researchers’ own before-and-after examples show how even the smallest changes—to color, type, composition, and layering—can greatly improve communication. Ideal for researchers who want a foothold for presenting and preparing their work for everything from conferences to publications, the book explains the steps for creating a concise and communicative graphic to highlight the most important aspects of research—and to clarify researchers’ own thinking. The resulting book is an essential element of any scientist’s, engineer’s, or designer’s library.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Felice C. Frankel is an award-winning science photographer and research scientist in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Working in collaboration with scientists and engineers, Frankel has had images appear in the New York Times, National Geographic, Nature, Science, PNAS, Newsweek, Scientific American, Discover, Popular Science, and New Scientist, among others. She is the author or coauthor of several books, including Visual Strategies, Picturing Science and Engineering, and The Visual Elements—Photography, the last also published by the University of Chicago Press.
REVIEWS
“Science is beautiful. Of course, that’s true abstractly, but in this book, Frankel shows how it can be visually beautiful too. She’s your skillful friend who will inspire you with the possibilities and then teach you the nuts and bolts to get started creating arresting graphics that tell a clear scientific story. Make sure you have a pencil nearby; your fingers will be itching to start sketching your science.”
— Siri Carpenter, cofounder and editor in chief of "The Open Notebook" and editor of "The Craft of Science Writing"
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
1 Listing and Sketching
2 Case Studies—Iterating the Iterations
3 Graphic Submissions—Figuring the Figures
4 Posters and Slide Presentations
A Last Word or Two
Credits
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