November 2014
Reading in context
by Bret Victor
Attempts to see the whole book while reading a book, via posters on the wall.
While Dave and Robert were trying to see a whole video at once, Bret wanted to see a whole book at once.
The Understanding Comics wall collage (2014) started things off.
Glen's Phumblr (2014) turned a reading list into a space.
The Mathematical Modeling poster (2014) is an expanded table of contents.
The Reading in context (2014) posters have thumbnail grids of entire chapters.
Diorama timelines (2014) get three-dimensional.
Hanging mobile timelines (2014) get three-dimensional and airborne.
In Known unknowns (2014), Robert applies his video timelines to books and documents.
In the Dynamic Library (2015), the whole book is projected above the shelf, and can be interacted with. This is one of the two key projects (with Research gallery) that sparked Hypercard in the World, which led to Realtalk.
Collective Electrodynamics posters (2018) were actually used for studying an entire book in-depth.
Bret made a lot of posters in 2014. It was the first taste of escaping the tiny rectangle, and designing representations at human scale instead of screen scale.
The urge to design dynamic posters, and work within an immersive space of structured information, led directly to Hypercard in the World (2015), and then Realtalk (2017).
It's impossible to experience a poster by looking at a website, so there's only so much you can get from clicking through the catalog below.
Understanding Comics wall collage
Modes of Human Experience poster
The Space of Person-to-Person Communication poster
Next year: Posters 2015