I first read Edward Tufte’s books in 2006 when I was a 23-year-old librarian who didn’t even know there was such a thing as a designer. (Here are the maps I drew of Beautiful Evidence and Envisioning Information.) The books had a big impact on me, so much so that I applied to Carnegie Mellon’s information design program. (I got in, but wound up moving to Texas and becoming a web designer instead.)
Last weekend I had some Tex-Mex with E.T. and walked around the alleys of Austin taking photos of found paintings left by the Austin Public Works department:
The next day I sat in on his famous day-long course and filled probably sixty notebook pages:
Dear 23-year-old me: your life is pretty cool. Keep drawing.