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The Visual Elements—Design: A Handbook for Communicating Science and Engineering

The Visual Elements—Design: A Handbook for Communicating Science and Engineering

Current price: $20.00
Publication Date: March 21st, 2024
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
ISBN:
9780226829166
Pages:
208
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Description

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.

About the Author

Felice C. Frankel is an award-winning science photographer and research scientist in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Frankel is a Guggenheim Fellow and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. At MIT, Frankel developed and instructed the first online MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) for edX addressing science and engineering photography. Working in collaboration with scientists and engineers, Frankel has had images appear in the New York Times, National Geographic, Nature, Science, Angewandte Chemie, Advanced Materials, Materials Today, PNAS, Newsweek, Scientific American, Discover, Popular Science, and New Scientist, among others. She is the author or coauthor of several books, including Envisioning Science, No Small Matter, On the Surface of Things, Visual Strategies, and Picturing Science and Engineering.

Praise for The Visual Elements—Design: A Handbook for Communicating Science and Engineering

“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"