From Library Journal
This thoroughly unusual book by designer and critic Helfand will delight graphic, information, and book designers. It will equally fascinate those interested in intellectual history, history of technology, and popular culture. Helfand begins with an essay that interweaves the history of wheel charts with humanity's fascination with the circle. The earliest volvelles (graduated movable paper circles-within-circles), as they are also called, are found in Renaissance astronomy texts. They offer data on celestial cycles, movements of the heavenly bodies, and the tides. Illustrations of these early texts are beautifully reproduced here. Other volvelles, such as the planisphere, a kind of manual computer used to reveal the portion of the night sky visible from a particular spot on earth, are discussed. The 20th century saw a mass audience develop for volvelles, representing an enormous range of topics from astronomy to American history to zoology, and the major portion of this book is devoted to full-page illustrations of these. Readers interested in information design will seek this out, while those interested in book and graphic design will be thrilled by the surprise. Includes footnotes and bibliography. For large libraries. Michael Dashkin, PricewaterhouseCoopers, New York
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Scientific American
"Twentieth-century volvelles--often referred to as 'wheel charts'-- offer everything from inventory control to color calibration, mileage metering to verb conjugation. They anticipate animal breeding cycles and calculate radiation exposure, measure chocolate consumption and quantify bridge tips, chart bird calls, convert metrics, and calculate taxes." Starting as a collector of wheel charts, Helfand (a design critic and lecturer on graphic design at Yale University) came to recognize how old the concept is and to marvel at how many uses it has found. Focusing on the proliferation of these devices in the 20th century, she presents pictures and descriptions of nearly 100 of them. Her book is therefore visually intriguing. But it also ventures deep into the philosophy of the devices. Despite their wide range of content, Helfand writes, "these paper artifacts are somehow philosophically united in their unique approach to information design."
Editors of Scientific American
