Overview

Graphics are diagrammatic visualizations of our thoughts of real or imaginary things. We can depict objects, concepts, and relationships between the objects and concepts. Engineers tend to work more with the depiction of objects and the relationship between objects, while artists and scientists work more with the depiction of concepts artists emphasize the emotional content of concepts, while scientists emphasize the rational content of concepts. However, designers must move fluidly between all three.

These diagrammatic visualizations vary greatly in their degree of intellectual abstraction. They may be as simple as a line on a Cartesian chart which describes the relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable, or a line drawn by a minimalist artist that captures the essence of an emotion that embodies the spirit of a holiday. Or they may be as complicated as an animated color depiction for a mathematical model of the Earth's climate, or a photorealistic visual simulation of a proposal for a new building or an entire new community. The point is that the author must decide on the kind of depiction that is most likely to successfully communicate the content being documented.

But what of the graphics themselves? What are they composed of and how are they created? In manual graphics we could begin by discussing media types, such as vellum, Mylar, ink, colored pencil, and colored marker. But what are the basic building blocks for e-graphics? How do we describe something as ethereal as electronic media and digital color?

"Nonsense is...