Sublime

Readers look first at the illustration, then at the headline, then at the copy. So put these elements in that order – illustration at the top, headline under the illustration, copy under the headline. This follows the normal order of scanning, which is from top to bottom. If you put the headline above the illustration, you are asking people to scan

To promote associations of high value, favor minimalism for affluent and well-educated audiences and horror vacui for poorer and less-educated audiences, and vice versa. For information-rich media such as newspapers and websites, employ information-organizing principles such as alignment and chunking to retain the benefits of information-dense page

Heavy users Thirty-two per cent of beer-drinkers drink 80 per cent of all beer. Twenty-three per cent of laxative users consume 80 per cent of all laxatives. Fourteen per cent of the people who drink gin consume 80 per cent of all the gin.

Title Subtitle Visual field (visuals, axes, labels, captions, legend) Source line

What about confusing clutter? Information overload? Doesn't data have to be "boiled down" and "simplified"? These common questions miss the point, for the quantity of detail is an issue completely separate from the difficulty of reading.  Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information .

On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 per cent of your money. The headlines which work best are those which promise the reader a benefit – like a whiter wash, more miles per gallon, freedom from pimples, fewer cavities.

Figure 2.19 100% stacked horizontal bar chart

Graphical excellence is the well-designed presentation of interesting data—a matter of substance, of statistics, and of design. • Graphical excellence consists of complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision, and efficiency. • Graphical excellence is that which gives to the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the lea