I really enjoyed the Bodenhamer reading and thought it was very relevant to my group’s project. Already on page one, he writes “We recognize our representations of space as value-laden guides to the world as we perceive it, and we understand how they exist in constant tension with other representations from different places, at different times, and even at the same time” (14). This claim is central to our project, so reading a piece that works with that claim was very valuable to my thinking about it. Later he writes “All spaces contain embedded stories based on what happened there. These stories are both individual and collective, and each of them link geography (space) and history (time). More important, they all reflect the values and cultural codes present in the various political and social arrangements that provide structure to society” (16). I think this idea of both embedded values and embedded stories, as linked concepts, is what we want to express, although we maybe haven’t thought critically enough about all the ways we want to accomplish the storytelling part of that project. Near the end of the selection, Bodenhamer wrote about deep maps, which are “meant to be visual and experiential, immersing users in a virtual world in which uncertainty, ambiguity, and contingency are ever-present, influenced by what was known (or believed) about the past and what was hoped for or feared in the future” (28). I love this idea, although it seems somehow far-off, but perhaps it is something we will approach in our work!

The Tufte reading was very helpful- I hadn’t thought too much about a lot of the design principles he laid out. I feel like I typically make graphics hoping to express an idea but don’t think too much about the side effects of the graphical choices I make. I definitely will think about color differently, and the 1+1=3 idea was also very influential. I did think it was funny that he wrote “words and pictures belong together, genuinely together. Separating text and graphic, even on the same page, usually requires encoding to link the separate elements” (116), as the separation of graphic from text was the most confusing part of this reading for me. Of course, it all worked out, but it was sometimes difficult to understand what he was referencing when graphics were on different pages from the description text or when related/compared graphics were across several pages. Otherwise, I found the reading very useful, and I’m sure it will seem even more fundamental when I actually implement some of the techniques and ideas he presented.