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Ethereum is a public service that uses the blockchain technology to store records and execute smart contracts between peers without relying on a third party. Or, using Ethereum Foundation’s own definition ^[1],

“Ethereum is a technology for building apps and organizations, holding assets, transacting and communicating without being controlled by a central authority.”

How and why Ethereum came to exist is the question we attempt to answer in this infographic.

How Did Ethereum Start?

Ethereum started as a white paper ^[2] published by Vitalik Buterin in 2014. In it, Vitalik cites Bitcoin as the first truly decentralized currency because it succeeds at building a public ledger that can be trusted:

The innovation provided by Satoshi is the idea of combining a very simple decentralized consensus protocol, based on nodes combining transactions into a “block” every ten minutes creating an ever-growing blockchain, with proof of work as a mechanism through which nodes gain the right to participate in the system.

This blockchain ledger, however, misses important features which result in it not being programmable to the degree that a computer is. Bitcoin scripting language is not Turing-complete ^[3]. Plus, Bitcoin itself does not store enough information about its own transactions — the problems that the Ethereum white paper refers to as value-blindness, lack of state, and blockchain blindness.

The solution is then creating an altogether new blockchain that can work with any data-manipulation rule sets (Turing completeness) and can store granular data about its transactions. Enter Ethereum.

The white paper then gives a more technical definition of Ethereum

[sic] a blockchain with a built-in Turing-complete programming language, allowing anyone to write smart contracts and decentralized applications where they can create their own arbitrary rules for ownership, transaction formats and state transition functions.

Although the paper went on to describe the math and architecture of Ethereum, the blockchain was not actually built until programmer Gavin Wood approached Vitalik in 2014 and offered to write an implementation.

The same year Ethereum pre-sale was launched generating USD $18.3 million in pre-sales or 60 million ether.

In July 2015, Ethereum’s first block or the “genesis block” was minted.

What is the Future of Ethereum?

At the time of press, Ethereum is the world’s second largest crypto currency by market capitalization. Since cryptocurrencies have no intrinsic value, their value is derived from their desirability by the public which makes the price of Ether, Ethereum’s token, volatile like many other crypto tokens, if not all. (We have yet to discover if even stablecoins are mostly stable. )

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The volatility and Ethereum’s relative novelty make predicting the future or even assessing the present quite tricky. But the prospect of Ethereum’s continued existences makes for some interesting scenarios.

The most optimistic scenario is perhaps Ethereum becoming world’s default record keeping system, including the monetary system, relied on by governments or even replacing them. Perhaps it would be equivalent to a world government with its own money, digital land, and cyber army.

For now, there is little indication of Ethereum rivaling fiat money or being used by governments as official tender.

Putting speculation aside, there are some things that we know with virtual certainty.

There will be a day that the last bitcoin is minted – bitcoin number 21 million which may influence its value and the value of Ethereum, although that is speculation once again.

Since September 15, 2022 Ethereum has become dramatically more energy efficient than, for example Bitcoin. This will likely make the technology more sustainable and widely adopted, although that is yet to be determined.

Ethereum is likely to become the backbone of a new Internet, dubbed web3, that is hosted on decentralized peer-to-peer networks. This Internet, if it materializes, may solve the privacy issues that plague Web 2.0 by removing centralized control of large corporations over people’s data. it will also enable anonymity and ownership of many new types of assets like Non-Fungible Tokens and others.

How we did it

While working on this infographic, it became clear to us that there is a need in explaining various web3 technologies and concepts which is disappointingly difficult to do in the limited space that we have in the canvas.

The history of Ethereum itself is well-documented by its creator in his many blog posts ^[4] and in books like “The Infinite Machine” by Camila Russo. In the infographic we attempted to visualize an overview of the history while providing some context for the technology powering it.

After doing research on web3, it did not escape us that infographics of web3 might work quite differently than our Web 2.0 effort. I can imagine that in the future this same infographic could be authored collaboratively by hundreds of people at once, researching, writing, and editing, as well as creating the illustrations. This way the information would have the best chance of being neutral and well-researched. Perhaps funds could be raised to continue documenting Ethereum’s history and features could be added for this infographic to display explanations of technical terms. This is already technologically possible, for example, by using the DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) type of smart contract on Ethereum. People could fund and vote on different additions to this visualization. For now, here is our best effort visualizing web3 using web2.

A special thanks goes to Sergey Bomko for patiently answering all the technical questions related to the blockchain technology. Thanks to Mark Vital and Daniel Action for helping with the research and design. Daria Bai for creating illustrations of Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood, and the vision of the future. Min Pyo Hong for helping to set up our crypto donations. Thanks to Unstoppable Domains for providing learning materials. Many thanks to Mark Rose, Eric Klien, 0xABADBABA1, Dylan Bodnariuk, Maksym Lobenko, Alexander Vushkan for reading the article and giving valuable feedback.

Feel free to donate to us. All contributions will be used to reward creators and best reviewers and continue the work on this infographic:

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References

1. ^ What is Ethereum? Ethereum Foundation, ethereum.org, retrieved Sep 16, 2022

2. ^ Ethereum Whitepaper, by Vitalik Buterin, 2014, ethereum.org

3. ^ What is Turing completeness, an explanation from stackoverflow.com

4. ^ vitalik.ca, Vitalik Buterin’s personal blog

Further reading

1. Crypto-hackers Is Building the Next Internet with Ethereum”, by Camila Russo, 2020.
2. Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money, by Nathaniel Popper, 2016.
3. “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, Satoshi Nakamoto satoshin@gmx.com, 31 October 2008.
4. Ethereum yellow paper, by Gavin Wood, 2014.

The post The History of Ethereum – The Timeline appeared first on Adioma.

Do what I love? Wait, how do I even know what I love before I do that thing I love. If I had the time and resources to have done enough of something to conclude that I love it, I would not need to ask if I loved it. I would just keep doing it without ever having to ask the question. This is not a game one can win. And it is probably true of love in general, if you have to ask if you love someone or something, the answer is no.

So, doing what you love is a circular kind of advice, equivalent to “Love what you do”.

A more nuanced approach to defining one’s mission or purpose in life comes from Japan. It is the concept of ikigai. Dan Buettner, the author of Blue Zones: Lessons on Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest, believes that ikigai is the reason for the famous Japanese longevity.

As with all things imported from another culture, the definition is easily lost to translation. Ikigai (生き甲斐) consists of iki (生き), meaning life and gai (甲斐), meaning worth. Although to many people in Japan the purpose of life may have nothing to do with work, the concept of the meaning of life in the West is more often connected to work.

Does ikigai solve the problem of finding one’s life’s purpose? As a thought experiment, let’s dive into an infographic exploration of what the concept of ikigai means.

The Ikigai

Work in general in tiring. Jobs age us. The art of living without fading away prematurely while being useful to society is what ikigai seems to be about.

The Ikigai, according to the eponymous book by Hector Garcia ^[1], lives at the intersection of four things: one’s skill, the love of applying that skill, the world’s need for it, and the world’s willingness to pay you for it.

1. Skill — this is the ability to do a job at an acceptable level of competence or above.
2. Need — this is the world’s demand for your skill.
3. Love — your subjective passion/obsession with what you do.
4. Money – getting paid for what you do.

Intersecting all four components yields a Venn diagram that produces seven intersections, six of which are not the Ikigai but can be mistaken for it. The four-way Venn-diagram is in my opinion an improvement proposed by data journalist David McCandless ^[2]. The diagram David was improving was originally published by The Toronto Star ^[3]. There were earlier attempts at drawing this diagram as well.

Here my quest is to define the intersections because part of defining the ikigai is elimination of what it is not. Now let us run a thought experiment for what each category and each intersection of two or three categories represent using some syllogistic reasoning:

What I have	What I am
Only Money (no skill, no love, no need)	You’re a drug dealer?
Only Money + Skill	Any hard and joyless job.
Only Money + Skill + Love	You have a lot of potential, but probably no marketable idea.
Only Skill	Eternal student?
Only Skill + Love	You are pursuing your passion in a hobby sort of way.
Only Skill + Need	A charity? Or You are working for free despite having the skills. Why?
Only Skill + Need + Love (no money)	You are on a mission but you struggle with finding customers or marketing.
Only Love (no money, no skill, no need)	You are a … pure heart
Only Love + Money (no skill, no need)	A philanthropist? A love monetized?
Love + Money + Skill + Need	IKIGAI

See the full table with our reasoning.

On one hand you have yourself with your existing preferences and existing skills. On the other hand, there is the world with its needs and its willingness to pay you money. And the big drama of life is in inserting yourself into such a world but without getting burnt out prematurely. In other words, how does one work sustainably?

Working Sustainably

If Ikigai requires that at any point in life we have the love, skill, compensation, and need for our work, all at the same time, it rules out the vast majority of job opportunities. Most jobs are “stepping stones” to something else, another job that maybe will some day materialize. Jobs often advertise “opportunities for growth”, “perks”, “exposure”, and “potential for growth” – all of these are great except they betray the fact that the job itself is not what you are going to enjoy. So when then will we finally “arrive”?

I am under no illusion that I have the world’s greatest job. Although, now that I come to think of it, maybe I do. I actually did enjoy writing this article. The keyboard is clacking away as I type. I am under no pressure to publish this. I am thinking about what you, the person reading this, will think about at this moment. Although we will probably never meet in person, this is a sort of thought handshake we are making. I like making the infographic above. I even liked procrastinating on writing this article for a year and a half because I thought I would come up with something better to write. I am enjoying editing this, too. I guess the work itself is the reward. The net energy spent on this article should be zero. If it is, presumably I can keep creating infographics for a long time.

We shall see… And this brings me back to the Japanese definition of ikigai. In a 2003 research paper on ikigai ^[4], co-author Akihiro Hasegawa, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at Toyo Eiwa University, discovered that the concept of ikigai for the Japanese aligns with seikatsu referring to the everyday life and the quotidien joys it brings. This sort of definition might feel anti-climactic. Perhaps, we are back to square one with our definition. Maybe all we have done here is explore what ikigai is not. Despite the illusive nature of ikigai’s definition, the effects of it are quite measurable. Broadly defining ikigai as “what makes life worth living,” a 2022 research has linked simply having an ikigai (versus not having one) with a 31% lower risk of developing functional disability and 36% lower risk of developing dementia during the three-year follow-up ^[5].

As we worked on this article with Dan Action, it turned out he had filled in his own ikigai diagram before which I think is a great idea because it can be made specific to one’s career and life options. So here we are giving away this diagram to fill out.
You can tweet, email or leave in comments your diagram if you want to discuss it. When I filled out mine, I found that writing full sentences rather than keywords yielded more specific results.

How We Made This Diagram

This infographic is a new addition to our previous graphic exploration of the meaning of life in different cultures and contexts. One of my earlier works ‘How Big Is Life’ was an attempt to estimate the impact of one’s life on other people numerically.

I also explored the topic by comparing what is the meaning of life according to different schools of philosophy.

Recently I stumbled on David McCandless diagram “Ikigai, Reasons For Being”, which is loosly based on a concept coined by David Buettler in his Ted talk on longevity.

I really like David’s version of Ikigai, who improved it by introducing the 4-way venn diagram where each of the concepts intersect uniquely. The naming of the intersections, I thought, was where some room for improvement remained.

Together with Daniel Action we further explored the linguistic defitions of ikigai and its assosiated concepts. We found that intuitive naming of concepts resulted in a confusing model inside the diagram. A better approach, we thought, would be running them through syllogistic analysis, hopeully resulting in a statement that is true without needing proof. For example, the intersection of medicine and a professional gives us a physician (medical doctor).

You can check the table that Dan and I compiled and see if you can come up with a more bulletproof syllogism anywhere in the diagram. Perhaps, even more interestingly, one could run these statements through a deep-learning language model, such as GPT-3, or a rule-based reasoning engine, if one already exists.

A special thanks goes to Mark Vital for helping with the design and research. Many thanks to Alexander Vushkan, 0xABADBABA1, Mark Rose, Amy Bramely, Murray Newlands, Siobhán Healy-Cullen and Roman Aleksandrenko for reading the article and giving valueble feedback.

References

1. ^ Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life, 2012, by Héctor García.

2. ^ Reasons for Being – Ikigai, by David McCandless, Information is Beautiful. Retrieved Jun 1, 2022.

3. ^ Why North Americans should consider dumping age-old retirement, by Neil Pasricha, The Toronto Star. Retrieved Dec 02, 2021.

4. ^ Regional differences in ikigai (reason (s) for living) in elderly people – Relationship between ikigai and family structure, physiological situation and functional capacity, August 2003, Nippon Ronen Igakkai Zasshi Japanese Journal of Geriatrics. DOI:10.3143/geriatrics.40.390

5. ^ Ikigai and subsequent health and wellbeing among Japanese older adults: Longitudinal outcome-wide analysis, The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific
Volume 21, April 2022, 100391. DOI:10.1016/j.lanwpc.2022.100391

Further reading

1. How to live to be 100+, David Buetler, TED, Mar, 2014

2. Ikigai article on Wikipedia, wikipedia.org

The post Ikigai – Reason For Being appeared first on Adioma.

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All philosophies on the meaning of life seem to fall into one of the four groups:

1. life has an objective meaning;
2. life has a subjective meaning;
3. life has no meaning;
4. life has a supernatural/unexplainable meaning.

The philosophies of the East and West also follow a pattern: Easterners think in terms of “we”, the community, while Westerners think in terms of “I”, the individual.

Then there is a question of what is a philosophy. Ideologies and religions are often mistaken for philosophies and vice versa. Take Daoism, for example, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines it as a philosophy. But the Cambridge Dictionary defines it as a religion. All belief systems that are definitely religions fall under “theism” in this infographic.

We follow the history of philosophy chronologically. Roughly, all philosophies follow this pattern: first, people appeal to God and supernatural forces, then they look for meaning within the community, later they look at the individual person, and finally, they look at humanity as a whole. We start with Natural Pantheism, humanity’s first attempt to explain its existence.

Natural Pantheism

Dates back to prehistoric times
Pantheism is the belief that God is in everything, that all things together comprise an all-encompassing god. The meaning of life is in living in harmony with all that there is.
Pantheism is an ancient idea that was formalized as a separate philosophy in Ethics by the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) in 1675.

Theism

Dates back to prehistoric times
Theism is the proposition that God or a Supreme Being exists. The meaning of life is then prescribed by the God that one believes in.
Theism dates back to the dawn of humanity where it was practiced in its various forms depending on what a group of humans believed their god to be like.

Daoism

Circa 5th Century BC
Daoism offers people a painless way of finding life’s meaning through Wu Wei (無爲) “action without intention” or “naturalness”. Such action leads to finding the Dao, which is “the way”. And yet, “the way” cannot be understood through any explanation or action. The Dao reveals itself only when a person simply is.
The  Dao De Jing (aka Tao Te Ching) by Chinese philosopher Lao Zi (lived c. 6th – 4th century BC) is the primary source on Daoism.

Determinism

Circa 6th Century BC
Determinism is the idea that all events happen as a result of previously existing causes. Since nothing can be changed in a pre-determined world, a person cannot have free will. The meaning of life, is there is one, is also pre-determined, and we cannot do anything to understand it.
The idea of determinism is ancient, reviving in the mathematics of the 18th. One of its well-known representatives is the French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes (1596-1650).

Confucianism

Circa 5th Century BC
Chinese philosopher Confucius (551-479 BC) tells us to cultivate virtue called Ren (仁) which is an altruistic sort of feeling one experiences when taking care of one’s children and parents. One of many ways Confucius explained virtue is this:

Now the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others. To be able to judge of others by what is nigh in ourselves – this may be called the art of virtue.

(Analects 6:30)
The primary source on Confucianism is The Analects of Confucius.

Mohism

Appeared around 5th Century BC
The Mohists propose the concept of “inclusive love” jian ai, a kind of impartial care for fellow human beings that includes everyone in society. The meaning of life is in following the model called Fa (法) in which one’s psychological state of care and the beneficial behavior that results from it are two sides of the same coin.
The source of Mohism is Mozi, a compilation of 71 books written by the Chinese philosopher Mozi (c. 470 – 391 BC).

Solipsism

Appeared around 5th Century BC
Solipsism is a theory that one can only be certain about one thing: one’s mind to exist. Solipsism was first recorded by the Greek sophist,  Gorgias (483-375) who is reported to have said:

1. Nothing exists.
2. Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it.
3. Even if something could be known about it, knowledge about it can’t be communicated to others.

The meaning of life according to solipsism can only be known by one’s mind and not in relation to other beings.
Some psychologists believe newborns to be initially solipsistic. Infants cry in the absence of parents nearby because they believe that when not visible, the parents stop existing. Eventually, children learn from observing others to reject solipsism.

Cynicism

Appeared around 4th Century BC
The Cynics attempt to offer people the possibility of happiness and freedom from suffering in the age of uncertainty. The meaning of life is mental lucidity and self-sufficiency (eudaimonia). To achieve self-sufficiency, a person must become free from external influences – such as wealth, fame, and power.
There is no central authority on Cynicism or any official doctrine. Yet, it was an influential tradition in Ancient Greece.

Hedonism

Appeared around 4th Century BC
Hedonism offers us a life based on seeking pleasure and avoiding suffering. Simple pleasures like eating, dancing, and playing music are meaningful in themselves.
Hedonism is an ancient idea that was later formulated by the Greek philosopher Democritus (c. 460 – 370 B.C.).

Platonism

Appeared around 4th Century BC
For the Greek philosopher Plato (c. 428 – c. 347 BC), the meaning of life is the pursuit of knowledge.  In his book Apology, Plato quotes his teacher Socrates (c. 470 – 399 BC) saying that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. In a nutshell, Platonism is the idea that there exist such things as “pure forms” which are abstractions. An abstration is something that neither exists in space nor time. It is completely non-physical and yet it is knowable. Knowledge of “pure forms” is the meaning of life. Daunting as it sounds, there is a shortcut of sorts. According to Plato, we are all born with all knowledge inside us but we have to recall it or rediscover it, which is a concept called anamnesis.
Plato’s most influential work is The Republic published around 375 BC.

Legalism (Chinese)

Appeared around 4th Century BC
The Legalists believed that humans are inherently selfish and cannot be trusted to behave morally. A strong government system can steer humans to continue behaving in their selfish ways while the system as a whole benefits from their work. The meaning of life is then in the acquisition of skills that make a person’s work valuable to the state which in turn benefits society.
The earliest Legalist text is  The Book of Lord Shang ( 商君書) written by the politician who raised Qin dynasty to its leading position in Asia.

Epicureanism

Appeared around 4th Century BC
The Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BC) was a materialist ancient Greek philosopher who offered that the meaning of life was in achieving sustainable pleasure which leads to a state of tranquility and freedom from fear (ataraxia).
What sort of pleasures are meaningful? Mental, not physical,  because mental pleasures exist in the past, the present, and the future, while physical pleasures are fleeting.
The poem  On the Nature of Things (De rerum nature)  compiles the core arguments and theories of Epicureanism.

Quietism

Appeared around 3rd Century BC
Quietists believe that philosophy as such has no answers to offer. Instead, its role is in pointing out linguistic confusions in the questions presented to philosophers. Thus, the question of the meaning of life assumes that we understand the meaning of the words “meaning” and “life”. Any attempt to pin down the meaning of either word reveals the meaninglessness of the question and thus the meaning of life cannot be understood by asking such a question.
Elements of Quietism are found in both Eastern and Western philosophies with Daoism known for its reluctance to use language and Greek Pyrrhonism embracing non-verbal “suspension of judgment” (epoché).

Aristotelianism

Circa 3rd Century BC
The Greek philosopher Aristotle (385-322 BC) reminds us that no one lives a good life in order to achieve some other goal. Being a good person in itself is sufficient. Virtue is the goal. There is no list of virtues because we all know what they are. For example, it is a virtue to have friends. We do not need to be taught that. Virtue and the rules of ethics are not a theoretical concept according to Aristotle. A human being knows what is good.
Aristotle’s  Nicomachean Ethics is the best known work on his thinking.

Stoicism

Circa 3rd Century BC
The Stoics (c. 334 – c. 262 BC) want you to be free from desire for pleasure or fear of pain.  Eschew emotion. How does one become dispassionate? Only through wisdom can one be free to act justly. A wise person becomes a sage through rational action that does not violate the laws of nature.
Hellenistic philosopher Zeno of Citium (c. 334 – 264 BC) founded the Stoic school of philosophy in Athens about 300 BC. The only complete Stoic works we have are by Seneca, Epictetus, and the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180), whose diary Meditations records his progress on self-transformation toward becoming a sage.

Modern Humanism

Circa the late 1300s
Humanism points out that humans themselves are responsible for the fate of humans in this world. Thus, promoting and helping other humans is the meaning of life.

Subjectivism

Circa the early 1600s
According to Subjectivists, the meaning of life varies by individual, depending on one’s mental state. The more a person achieves their own goals that are set by themselves, the more meaningful their life is. Subjectivists reject that there may be objective values in life that one should achieve despite subjective goals.
Subjectivism is attributed to Rene Descartes and his thought experiment “I think, therefore, I exist.”

Liberalism

Appeared in 1689
The Liberalists trust that a person is naturally free to choose what to do without permission from any other person. Anyone attempting to limit freedoms must first prove that it is necessary. The meaning of life is then in protecting individual liberties against the political coercion that may or may not be justified.
English philosopher and physician John Locke’s (1632-1704) work Two Treatises of Government is the foundational text of liberal ideology.

Kantianism

Appeared in 1785
Kantianism proposes that every human action should be judged according to a universal maxim, or principle. If an action violates a principle then a person failed their duty toward humans. For example, if people followed the maxim kill anyone you dislike, when applied universally, it would lead to the end of humanity. So, the meaning of life is in fulfilling your duty to follow universal principles.
The origin of Kantianism is German philosopher Emmanuel Kant’s(1724-1804) book  The Critique of Pure Reason.

Nihilism

Appeared in 1862
Nihilism, also called Pessimism, is the belief that nothing can make life meaningful. The Nihilists see something inherent about humans that prevents us from finding meaning in life. It can be the human tendency for being dissatisfied or always seeking something or being bored once it is found.
The origin of Nihilism is ancient but among philosophers, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) concept “Will to Power” is most often associated with it.

Pragmatism

Circa the 1870s
Unlike many other schools of philosophy, the Pragmatists have no official creed. In general, their views suggest that rather than truth about life, we should seek a useful understanding of life.
The American philosopher and psychologist  William James (1842-1910), one of pragmatism’s main figures argued that truth could be made but not sought. Is life worth living? James answered, “Maybe.” The answer depends on what you do with your life. The meaning of life is then doing the thing that most contributes to the most human good over the longest course – that is bringing maximum value to humanity.
There is hardly a main source of the Pragmatism doctrine, but William James is one of its most prolific authors. His book  William James on Habit, Will, Truth, and the Meaning of Life covers the subject.

Logical Empiricism

Circa the 1920s
Also called logical positivism, the idea of logical positivism is that anything that the only type of knowledge available to us is facts – scientifically verifiable and observable. Anything else is meaningless. The meaning of life can then only be derived from one’s actual experience. We cannot know if life has a meaning beyond what we can see.
Although the logical positivists did not have a leader, The Vienna Circle is the movement’s most influential group.

Existentialism

Circa the 1940s
The existentialists think that we all begin life with “existential angst”, a feeling of anxiety about the apparent meaningless of our lives. To find meaning in life, a person has to decide on their own values and then take action to live according to them.
The first existentialist text is German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s(1889-1976) work  Being and Time (1927), which is an exploration of the “being that we ourselves are”.

Absurdism

Appeared in 1942
Absurdists ask, “Why would you even ask such a useless question?” The question destined to fail because of the conflict between the human mind that desperately seeks meaning and a world where everything falls short of having a finite, immutable meaning. Looking for meaning in life is a Sysipean task – the more you search for one, the less you understand it. Sysiphus became a symbol of life’s meaninglessness because in Greek mythology he was punished for his misdeeds by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to tumble back every time he neared the summit. This went on for eternity.
The absurdist French philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960) proposed that people should embrace the absurdity of our existence and then proceed to wilfully live their lives.
The defining work on absurdism is Albert Camus’s work The Myth of Sisyphus 

What’s Next for the Meaning of Life?

You might have noticed that this whole time, philosophers assumed we are talking about the meaning of human life. What about animal life? Or maybe life as in all events that happen in the universe? If extraterrestrial life exists, does our definition of life’s meaning include them?

Acknowledgments

This article is inspired by Metz, Thaddeus, “The Meaning of Life”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL.

Thanks to Daniel Action for validating the research for this article and proofreading the drafts. Thanks to Igor Pikovets for reviewing the drafts, and to Mark Vital for collaborating on information design of the graphic.

Why I wrote this

As an infographic designer (or visual writer) I’m on a quest to reduce wordy textual knowledge to its concise visual form. Reductionism is a tool, not the goal. Ideally, a philosopher should write this article with my help in the visualization department. I hope the next version of this infographic will be made in collaboration with a philosophy expert. Until then, please treat this infographic as a proof of concept for visualization on a popular topic with an academic foundation.

The post The Meaning of Life According to Different Philosophies appeared first on Adioma.

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In his essay “How to Disagree”, Paul Graham classifies the ways of arguing a point. He suggests that they should form a hierarchy based on their strength and frequency of use.

The hierarchy of argument

1. Name-calling.
2. Ad Hominem.
3. Responding to Tone.
4. Contradiction.
5. Counterargument.
6. Refutation.
7. Refuting the Central Point.

Visualized as an infographic, the hierarchy forms a pyramid with the most convincing type of disagreement at the top. According to Paul Graham, it also happens to be the least common. Not only does it take some skill to identify the central point of an argument and to find how to refute it, this way of arguing also requires that the opponent commit to the central point of the argument. This is rare because we often tend to reframe arguments in an attempt to make the central point be something else.

This simple pyramid shows by way of a metaphor that the least convincing arguments are the most common and take the least effort to make. It also shows that the strongest form of argument requires the most acceptance of the author’s point which in itself is a form of agreement. So, the strongest form of disagreement includes an element of agreement!

In between, the types of disagreement often take on the form of logical fallacies. These have been beautifully catalogued here. Ad hominem attack is just one of several dozen possible fallacies. Even if a person is not committing a logical fallacy, they might still be experiencing a cognitive bias. These biases can lead us into the ineffective forms of disagreement without us realizing it. This master infographic classifies many cognitive biases and some logical fallacies.

Arguing And Not Offending

Arguments tend to be associated with negative emotions. We often fear that by disagreeing we offend the author. The pyramid shows that there are indeed a few ways of arguing that are necessarily offensive: the name-calling and the ad hominem attack. The closer an argument approaches the refutation of the central point, the less offensive it is.

This is somewhat of a paradox because the strongest form of disagreement is also the least offensive. It also takes the most effort. Of course, it comes with a risk of you failing to find a refutation as strong as the central point requires. But even a good-faith attempt to do so shows that you understood the central point. The author will know that you heard them, at least. That already is a form of acceptance.

The Basic Norms of How to Argue

The pyramid of disagreement can also be re-written as a set of rules.

1. Do not name-call.

This may be obvious but sometimes a sophisticated form of name-calling can sound positive, even endearing, such as “sweetheart”.

2. Do not attack the opponent’s persona.

Again, most of us would not use obvious forms of ad hominem attacks. The concealed ad hominem may be attacking the person’s authority to speak on the topic. For example, one could attack this piece by pointing out that the author is not a psychologist and, therefore, has no authority to give such advice. This is true, and even relevant, but it is still a weak form of argument because it does not refute anything in the article.

3. Respond to the substance, not to the tone.

How something is said often matters to us more than what is said. This is true when we prioritize our feelings above logic. But feelings are not always paramount. If a doctor announces that you are about to become a parent, for example, you will not remember their tone as much as the content of their statement. So when arguing, give the opponent the benefit of the doubt listening to the substance and not so much the form. Another form of this would be nitpicking: one can find a typo in this article and dismiss the whole piece altogether.

4. Do not contradict without offering supporting evidence

A contradiction is merely stating that the opposite is true but without relying on reasoning or authority. In matters of fact, it would be the work of the opponent to find facts supporting the opposing view. In matters of principle or taste, the opponent would have to reason or appeal to a higher authority.

5. Do not argue in general, argue THEIR central point

It is easier to pick one of the minor points and argue that which is more convenient. This is a form of intellectual trickery. This tactic can be accompanied by attempts to make the author think that they misunderstood what their central point was. Even if sophisticated, this is still a form of aggression.

6. Do not use their own words to argue another point

Even more refined a tactic, is quoting them to support some other point, not the one they made. This is again simply a trick that, if caught, will make them angry. Do not risk being caught doing this. You may lose their trust.

7. Do point to a flaw in their central argument

If you do see a mistake in the central argument, state it by quoting them and providing supporting evidence that the opposite is true.

If all people followed these seven rules, the number of arguments would sharply decrease. And I do not mean a sevenfold decrease. Probably much more than that although I don’t know how much. People would slow down to process their arguments, attempting to identify the central points, and in the process eliminate responses based on logical fallacies and their cognitive biases. We would not all agree as a result, but we would become more deliberate in what we argue about.

The infographic above is based on the essay “How to Disagree” by Paul Graham.

The post How To Argue – The Hierarchy of Disagreement appeared first on Adioma.

Create an infographic like this on Adioma

First, Carl Jung formulated the theory of psychological types (Jung, 1971). Then The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator became a common test for finding out one’s personality type. (Briggs Myers, 1980). Later, psychologist David Keirsey named and described each of the 16 personality types. In the above infographic, you can see how all these typologies overlap.

Before reading any further, you are welcome to take the test here.

Not all classifications of people are based on their entire personality, as if it were a monolith thing. There is a competing theory that classifies people by The Five Personality Traits resulting in an infinite number of combinations of degrees to which each person posseses these five traits.

Four Temperaments by Keirsey

David Keirsey expanded on the ancient study of temperament by Hippocrates and Plato. In his works, Keirsey used the names suggested by Plato: Artisan (iconic), Guardian (pistic), Idealist (noetic), and Rational (dianoetic). Keirsey divided the four temperaments into two categories (roles), each with two types (role variants). The resulting 16 types correlate with the 16 personality types described by Briggs and Myers (MBTI).

For illustrative purposes, Keirsey and his son, David M. Keirsey, have identified well-known individuals whose behavior is consistent with a specific type

The Supervisor – ESTJ Personality

Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging type

Supervisors are highly social and community-minded, with many rising to positions of responsibility in their school, church, industry, or civic groups. Supervisors are generous with their time and energy, and very often belong to a variety of service clubs, lodges, and associations, supporting them through steady attendance, but also taking an outspoken leadership role. Supervisors like to take charge of groups and are comfortable issuing orders. They are cooperative with their own superiors, and they would like cooperation from the people working under them. Rank, they believe, has its obligations, but it also has its privileges.

Comprising at least ten percent of the population, Supervisors enjoy and are good at making schedules, agendas, inventories, and so on, and they much prefer tried and true ways of doing things over speculation and experimentation. Supervisors keep their feet firmly on the ground and would like those under their supervision to do the same, whether employee, subordinate, spouse, or offspring. Supervisors have no problem evaluating others and tend to judge how a person is doing in terms of his or her compliance with, and respect for, schedules and procedures.

Supervisors are unbelievably hard-working. Even as children they are industrious, and they usually respect their parents as authority figures. In school Supervisors are often model students, dutifully following directions, doing all their homework, doing it thoroughly, and on time. Above all else, they wish to do what they are supposed to do, and they rarely question the teacher’s assignments, method of instruction, standards, or authority. And their industry and perseverance only become more important to them as they grow into adulthood and take on the responsibilities of job and family.

Supervisors approach human relations along traditional lines. Marriage and parenthood are sacred to them, and they tend to have a large circle of friends, with many friendships faithfully maintained over the years. Social gatherings and ceremonies have great meaning for them, and they look forward to holiday parties, club dances, weddings, class reunions, awards banquets, and the like. In social situations, Supervisors are friendly and talk easily with others. Though they can seem a bit formal in their manners, Supervisors are pretty easy to get to know. At ease in polite company, they tend not to confuse people by sending double messages or putting on airs-what they seem to be, they are.

Notable Supervisors:

• George Washington
• Sandra Day O’Connor
• Vince Lombardi
• Judith Sheindlin (Judge Judy)
• Mike Wallace

The Inspector – ISTJ personality

Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging type

The one word that best describes Inspectors is superdependable. Whether at home or at work, Inspectors are extraordinarily persevering and dutiful, particularly when it comes to keeping an eye on the people and products they are responsible for. In their quiet way, Inspectors see to it that rules are followed, laws are respected, and standards are upheld.

Inspectors (as much as ten percent of the general population) are the true guardians of institutions. They are patient with their work and with the procedures within an institution, although not always with the unauthorized behavior of some people in that institution. Responsible to the core, Inspectors like it when people know their duties, follow the guidelines, and operate within the rules. For their part, Inspectors will see to it that goods are examined and schedules are kept, that resources will be up to standards and delivered when and where they are supposed to be. And they would prefer that everyone be this dependable. Inspectors can be hard-nosed about the need for following the rules in the workplace, and do not hesitate to report irregularities to the proper authorities. Because of this they are often misjudged as being hard-hearted, or as having ice in their veins, for people fail to see their good intentions and their vulnerability to criticism. Also, because Inspectors usually make their inspections without much flourish or fanfare, the dedication they bring to their work can go unnoticed and unappreciated.

While not as talkative as Supervisor Guardians [ESTJs], Inspectors are still highly sociable, and are likely to be involved in community service organizations, such as Sunday School, Little League, or Boy and Girl Scouting, that transmit traditional values to the young. Like all Guardians, Inspectors hold dear their family social ceremonies-weddings, birthdays, and anniversaries – although they tend to be shy if the occasion becomes too large or too public. Generally speaking, Inspectors are not comfortable with anything that gets too fancy. Their words tend to be plain and down-to-earth, not showy or high-flown; their clothes are often simple and conservative rather than of the latest fashion; and their home and work environments are usually neat, orderly, and traditional, rather than trendy or ostentatious. As for personal property, they usually choose standard items over models loaded with features, and they often try to find classics and antiques – Inspectors prefer the old-fashioned to the newfangled every time.

Notable Inspectors:

• Queen Elizabeth II
• Harry S. Truman
• Warren Buffett
• Queen Victoria
• John D. Rockefeller

Provider – ESFJ Personality

Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging type

Providers take it upon themselves to insure the health and welfare of those in their care, but they are also the most sociable of all the Guardians, and thus are the great nurturers of social institutions such as schools, churches, social clubs, and civic groups. Providers are very likely more than ten percent of the population, and this is fortunate for the rest of us, because friendly social service is a key to their nature. Wherever they go, Providers happily give their time and energy to make sure that the needs of others are met, and that social functions are a success.

Highly cooperative themselves, Providers are skilled in maintaining teamwork among their helpers, and are also tireless in their attention to the details of furnishing goods and services. They make excellent chairpersons in charge of dances, banquets, class reunions, charity fund-raisers, and the like. They are without peer as masters of ceremonies, able to speak publicly with ease and confidence. And they are outstanding hosts or hostesses, knowing everyone by name, and seemingly aware of what everyone’s been doing. Providers love to entertain, and are always concerned about the needs of their guests, wanting to make sure that all are involved and provided for.

Friendly, outgoing, neighborly – in a word, Providers are gregarious, so much so that they can become restless when isolated from people. They love to talk with others, and will often strike up a conversation with strangers and chat pleasantly about any topic that comes to mind. Friendships matter a great deal to Providers, and their conversations with friends often touch on good times from years past. Family traditions are also sacred to them, and they carefully observe birthdays and anniversaries. In addition, Providers show a delightful fascination with news of their friends and neighbors. If we wish to know what’s been going on in the local community, school, or church, they’re happy to fill us in on all the details.

Providers are extremely sensitive to the feelings of others, which makes them perhaps the most sympathetic of all the types, but which also leaves them somewhat self-conscious, that is, highly sensitive to what others think of them. Loving and affectionate themselves, they need to be loved in return. In fact, Providers can be crushed by personal criticism, and are happiest when given ample appreciation both for themselves personally and for the tireless service they give to others.

Notable Providers:

• Ray Kroc
• Dolley Madison
• Louis B. Mayer
• James Cash (J.C.) Penney
• William Howard Taft
• Dave Thomas
• Barbara Walters
• Sam Walton

Protector – ISFJ Personality

Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging type

We are lucky that Protectors make up as much as ten percent the population, because their primary interest is in the safety and security of those they care about – their family, their circle of friends, their students, their patients, their boss, their fellow-workers, or their employees. Protectors have an extraordinary sense of loyalty and responsibility in their makeup, and seem fulfilled in the degree they can shield others from the dirt and dangers of the world. Speculating and experimenting do not intrigue Protectors, who prefer to make do with time-honored and time-tested products and procedures rather than change to new. At work Protectors are seldom happy in situations where the rules are constantly changing, or where long-established ways of doing things are not respected. For their part, Protectors value tradition, both in the culture and in their family. Protectors believe deeply in the stability of social ranking conferred by birth, titles, offices, and credentials. And they cherish family history and enjoy caring for family property, from houses to heirlooms.

Wanting to be of service to others, Protectors find great satisfaction in assisting the downtrodden, and can deal with disability and neediness in others better than any other type. They are not as outgoing and talkative as the Provider Guardians [ESFJs], and their shyness is often misjudged as stiffness, even coldness, when in truth Protectors are warm-hearted and sympathetic, giving happily of themselves to those in need.

Their reserve ought really to be seen as an expression of their sincerity and seriousness of purpose. The most diligent of all the types, Protectors are willing to work long, hard hours quietly doing all the thankless jobs that others manage to avoid. Protectors are quite happy working alone; in fact, in positions of authority they may try to do everything themselves rather than direct others to get the job done. Thoroughness and frugality are also virtues for them. When Protectors undertake a task, they will complete it if humanly possible. They also know better than any other type the value of a dollar, and they abhor the squandering or misuse of money. To save, to put something aside against an unpredictable future, to prepare for emergencies-these are actions near and dear to the Protector’s heart. For all these reasons, Protectors are frequently overworked, just as they are frequently misunderstood and undervalued. Their contributions, and also their economies, are often taken for granted, and they rarely get the gratitude they deserve.

Notable Protectors:

• George H.W. Bush
• Jimmy Stewart
• Mother Teresa
• Tsar Nicholas II
• King George VI

Promoter – ESTP Personality

Extraverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving type

There are lots of Promoters — maybe ten or so percent of the population, and life is never dull around them. In a word, they are men and women of action. When a Promoter is present, things begin to happen: the lights come on, the music plays, the games begin. Clever and full of fun, Promoters live with a theatrical flourish which makes even the most routine events seem exciting. Not that they waste much time on routine events. In work and in play, Promoters demand new activities and new challenges. Bold and daring at heart, and ever-optimistic that things will go their way, Promoters will take tremendous risks to get what they want, and seem exhilarated by walking close to the edge of disaster. Because of this, they make the very best trouble-spot administrators and negotiators, and they can be outstanding entrepreneurs, able to swing deals and kick-start enterprises in a way no other type can.

Promoters also have a hearty appetite for the finer things of life, the best food, the best wine, expensive cars, and fashionable clothes. And they are extremely sophisticated in social circles, knowing many, many people by name, and knowing how to say just the right thing to most everyone they meet.

Charming, confident, and popular, Promoters delight their friends and investors with their endless supply of stories and jokes. At the same time, these smooth operators are usually something of a mystery to others. While they live in the moment and lend excitement – and unpredictability – to all their relationships, they rarely let anyone get really close to them. They have a low tolerance for authority and commitment, and are likely to leave situations where they are expected to toe the mark, or where they must play second fiddle. Promoters understand well the maxim, “He who travels fastest, travels alone,” although they are not likely to be lonely for long, since their boldness and sense of adventure tends to make them highly attractive to many other people.

Notable Promoters:

• Winston Churchill
• Ernest Hemingway
• Madonna
• General George Patton
• Evita Peron
• Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Grace Slick
• Donald Trump

Crafter – ISTP Personality

Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving type

The nature of Crafters is most clearly seen in their masterful operation of tools, equipment, machines, and instruments of all kinds. Most us use tools in some capacity, of course, but Crafters (as much as ten percent of the population) are the true masters of tool work, with an innate ability to command tools and to become expert at all the crafts requiring tool skills. Even from an early age they are drawn to tools as if to a magnet — tools fall into their hands demanding use, and they must work with them.

Like all the Artisans, Crafters are people who love action, and who know instinctively that their activities are more enjoyable, and more effective, if done impulsively, spontaneously, subject to no schedules or standards but their own. In a sense, Crafters do not work with their tools, but play with them when the urge strikes them. Crafters also seek fun and games on impulse, looking for any opportunity, and just because they feel like it, to play with their various toys: cars, motorcycles, boats, dune-buggies, hunting rifles, fishing tackle, scuba gear, and on and on. They thrive on excitement, particularly the rush of speed-racing, water-skiing, surfing. And Crafters are fearless in their play, exposing themselves to danger again and again, even despite frequent injury. Of all the types, Crafters are most likely to be risk takers, pitting themselves, or their technique, against chance or odds.

Perhaps this is because they tend to communicate through action, and show little interest in developing language skills. Their lack of expressiveness can isolate them at school and on the job, and even though they hang around with their own kind in play, they let their actions speak for them, and their actual conversation is sparse and brief.

Crafters can be wonderfully generous and loyal to their friends, teammates, and sidekicks, often giving up their evenings or weekends to help with building projects or mechanical repairs-house remodeling, for example, or working on cars or boats. On the other hand, they can be fiercely insubordinate to those in authority, seeing rules and regulations as unnecessarily confining. Crafters will not usually go against regulations openly, but will simply ignore them. More than anything, Crafters want to be free to do their own thing, and they are proud of their ability to do it with an artist’s skill.

Notable Crafters:

• Woody Allen
• Lance Armstrong
• Michael Douglas
• Katharine Hepburn
• Michael Jordan
• Bruce Lee
• Alan Shepard
• Tiger Woods

Performer – ESFP Personality

Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving type

Performers have the special ability, even among the Artisans, to delight those around them with their warmth, their good humor, and with their often extraordinary skills in music, comedy, and drama. Whether on the job, with friends, or with their families, Performers are exciting and full of fun, and their great social interest lies in stimulating those around them to take a break from work and worry, to lighten up and enjoy life.

Performers are plentiful, something over ten percent of the population, and this is fortunate, because they bring pleasure to so many of us. Performers are the people for whom it can truly be said “all the world’s a stage.” Born entertainers, they love the excitement of playing to an audience, and will quickly become the center of attention wherever they are. Performers aren’t comfortable being alone, and seek the company of others whenever possible — which they usually find, for they make wonderful playmates. Performers are smooth, talkative, and witty; they always seem to know the latest jokes and stories, and are quick with wisecracks and wordplay-nothing is so serious or sacred that it can’t be made fun of. Performers also like to live in the fast lane, and seem up on the latest fashions of dress, food, drink, and music. Lively and uninhibited, Performers are the life of the party, always trying to create in those around them a mood of eat, drink, and be merry.

The Performers’ talent for enjoying life is healthy for the most part, though it also makes them more subject to temptations than the other types. Pleasure seems to be an end in itself for them, and variety is the spice of life. And so Performers are open to trying almost anything that promises them a good time, not always giving enough thought to the consequences.

Like the other Artisans, Performers are incurably optimistic – “Always look on the bright side,” is their motto — and they will avoid worries and troubles by ignoring them as long as possible. They are also the most generous of all the types, and second only to the Composer Artisans [ISFPs] in kindness. Performers haven’t a mean or stingy bone in their body-what’s theirs is yours-and they seem to have little idea of saving or conserving. They give what they have to one and all without expectation of reward, just as they love freely, and without expecting anything in return. In so many ways, Performers view life as an eternal cornucopia from which flows an endless supply of pleasures.

Notable Performers:

• Bill Clinton
• Ronald Reagan
• Leonard Bernstein
• Magic Johnson
• Elvis Presley
• Elizabeth Taylor

Composer – ISFP Personality

Intoverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving type

More than the other Artisans, Composers are in tune with their senses, and so have a sure grasp of what belongs, and what doesn’t belong, in all kinds of works of art. While the other Artisans are skilled with people, tools, and entertainment, Composers have an exceptional ability-seemingly inborn-to work with subtle differences in color, tone, texture, aroma, and flavor.

Although Composers often put long, lonely hours into their artistry, they are just as impulsive as the other Artisans. They do not wait to consider their moves; rather, they act in the here and now, with little or no planning or preparation. Composers are seized by the act of artistic composition, as if caught up in a whirlwind. The act is their master, not the reverse. Composers paint or sculpt, they dance or skate, they write melodies or make recipes-or whatever-simply because they must. They climb the mountain because it is there.

This ability to lose themselves in action accounts for the spectacular individual accomplishments of some Composers, and yet on their social side they show a kindness unmatched by all the other types. Composers are especially sensitive to the pain and suffering of others, and they sympathize freely with the sufferer. Some have a remarkable way with young children, almost as if there were a natural bond of sympathy and trust between them. A similar bond may be seen between some Composers and animals, even wild animals. Many Composers have an instinctive longing for the wilds, and nature seems to welcome them.

Composers are just as plentiful as the other Artisans, say nine or ten per cent of the population, but in general they are very difficult to observe and thus greatly misunderstood. Very likely the difficulty comes from their tendency not to express themselves verbally, but through their works of art. Composers are usually not interested in developing ability in public speaking, or even in the art of conversation; they prefer to feel the pulse of life by touch, in the muscles, in the eyes, in the ears, on the tongue. Make no mistake, Composers are just as interested as other types in sharing their view of the world, and if they find a medium of non-verbal communication-some art form-then they will express their character quite eloquently. If not, they simply remain unknown, their quietness leaving their character all but invisible.

Notable Composers:

• Mikhail Gorbachev
• Mel Brooks
• Cher
• Bob Dylan
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Jackie Kennedy Onassis
• Neil Simon
• Steven Spielberg

Teacher – ENFJ Personality

Extraverted Intuitive Feeling Judging type

Even more than the other Idealists,Teachers have a natural talent for leading students or trainees toward learning, or as Idealists like to think of it, they are capable of calling forth each learner’s potentials. Teachers (around two percent of the population) are able – effortlessly, it seems, and almost endlessly-to dream up fascinating learning activities for their students to engage in. In some Teachers, this ability to fire the imagination can amount to a kind of genius which other types find hard to emulate. But perhaps their greatest strength lies in their belief in their students. Teachers look for the best in their students, and communicate clearly that each one has untold potential, and this confidence can inspire their students to grow and develop more than they ever thought possible.

In whatever field they choose, Teachers consider people their highest priority, and they instinctively communicate personal concern and a willingness to become involved. Warmly outgoing, and perhaps the most expressive of all the types, Teachers are remarkably good with language, especially when communicating in speech, face to face. And they do not hesitate to speak out and let their feelings be known. Bubbling with enthusiasm, Teachers will voice their passions with dramatic flourish, and can, with practice, become charismatic public speakers. This verbal ability gives Teachers a good deal of influence in groups, and they are often asked to take a leadership role.

Teachers like things settled and organized, and will schedule their work hours and social engagements well ahead of time — and they are absolutely trustworthy in honoring these commitments. Valuing as they do interpersonal cooperation and harmonious relations, Teachers are extraordinarily tolerant of others, are easy to get along with, and are usually popular wherever they are.

Teachers are highly sensitive to others, which is to say their intuition tends to be well developed. Certainly their insight into themselves and others is unparalleled. Without a doubt, they know what is going on inside themselves, and they can read other people with uncanny accuracy. Teachers also identify with others quite easily, and will actually find themselves picking up the characteristics, emotions, and beliefs of those around them. Because they slip almost unconsciously into other people’s skin in this way, Teachers feel closely connected with those around them, and thus show a sincere interest in the joys and problems of their employees, colleagues, students, clients, and loved ones.

Notable Teachers:

• Mikhail Gorbachev
• Pope John Paul II
• Margaret Mead
• Ralph Nader
• Oprah Winfrey
• John Wooden

Counselor – INFJ Personality

Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging type

Counselors have an exceptionally strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others, and find great personal fulfillment interacting with people, nurturing their personal development, guiding them to realize their human potential. Although they are happy working at jobs (such as writing) that require solitude and close attention, Counselors do quite well with individuals or groups of people, provided that the personal interactions are not superficial, and that they find some quiet, private time every now and then to recharge their batteries. Counselors are both kind and positive in their handling of others; they are great listeners and seem naturally interested in helping people with their personal problems. Not usually visible leaders, Counselors prefer to work intensely with those close to them, especially on a one-to-one basis, quietly exerting their influence behind the scenes.

Counselors are scarce, little more than three percent of the population, and can be hard to get to know, since they tend not to share their innermost thoughts or their powerful emotional reactions except with their loved ones. They are highly private people, with an unusually rich, complicated inner life. Friends or colleagues who have known them for years may find sides emerging which come as a surprise. Not that Counselors are flighty or scattered; they value their integrity a great deal, but they have mysterious, intricately woven personalities which sometimes puzzle even them.

Counselors tend to work effectively in organizations. They value staff harmony and make every effort to help an organization run smoothly and pleasantly. They understand and use human systems creatively, and are good at consulting and cooperating with others. As employees or employers, Counselors are concerned with people’s feelings and are able to act as a barometer of the feelings within the organization.

Blessed with vivid imaginations, Counselors are often seen as the most poetical of all the types, and in fact they use a lot of poetic imagery in their everyday language. Their great talent for language-both written and spoken-is usually directed toward communicating with people in a personalized way. Counselors are highly intuitive and can recognize another’s emotions or intentions – good or evil – even before that person is aware of them. Counselors themselves can seldom tell how they came to read others’ feelings so keenly. This extreme sensitivity to others could very well be the basis of the Counselor’s remarkable ability to experience a whole array of psychic phenomena.

Notable Counselors:

• Emily Brontë
• Mary Baker Eddy
• Mohandas Gandhi
• Jane Goodall
• Sir Alec Guinness
• Carl Jung
• Queen Noor
• Sidney Poitier
• Eleanor Roosevelt

Champion – ENFP Personality

Extraverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiving type

Like the other Idealists, Champions are rather rare, say three or four percent of the population, but even more than the others they consider intense emotional experiences as being vital to a full life. Champions have a wide range and variety of emotions, and a great passion for novelty. They see life as an exciting drama, pregnant with possibilities for both good and evil, and they want to experience all the meaningful events and fascinating people in the world. The most outgoing of the Idealists, Champions often can’t wait to tell others of their extraordinary experiences. Champions can be tireless in talking with others, like fountains that bubble and splash, spilling over their own words to get it all out. And usually this is not simple storytelling; Champions often speak (or write) in the hope of revealing some truth about human experience, or of motivating others with their powerful convictions. Their strong drive to speak out on issues and events, along with their boundless enthusiasm and natural talent with language, makes them the most vivacious and inspiring of all the types.

Fiercely individualistic, Champions strive toward a kind of personal authenticity, and this intention always to be themselves is usually quite attractive to others. At the same time, Champions have outstanding intuitive powers and can tell what is going on inside of others, reading hidden emotions and giving special significance to words or actions. In fact, Champions are constantly scanning the social environment, and no intriguing character or silent motive is likely to escape their attention. Far more than the other Idealists, Champions are keen and probing observers of the people around them, and are capable of intense concentration on another individual. Their attention is rarely passive or casual. On the contrary, Champions tend to be extra sensitive and alert, always ready for emergencies, always on the lookout for what’s possible.

Champions are good with people and usually have a wide range of personal relationships. They are warm and full of energy with their friends. They are likable and at ease with colleagues, and handle their employees or students with great skill. They are good in public and on the telephone, and are so spontaneous and dramatic that others love to be in their company. Champions are positive, exuberant people, and often their confidence in the goodness of life and of human nature makes good things happen.

Notable Champions:

• Joan Baez
• Joseph Campbell
• Charles Dickens
• Phil Donahue[1]
• Martin Luther King Jr
• Bill Moyers
• Paul Robeson
• Sargent Shriver
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Edith Wharton

Healer – INFP Personality

Introverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiving type

Healers present a calm and serene face to the world, and can seem shy, even distant around others. But inside they’re anything but serene, having a capacity for personal caring rarely found in the other types. Healers care deeply about the inner life of a few special persons, or about a favorite cause in the world at large. And their great passion is to heal the conflicts that trouble individuals, or that divide groups, and thus to bring wholeness, or health, to themselves, their loved ones, and their community.

Healers have a profound sense of idealism that comes from a strong personal sense of right and wrong. They conceive of the world as an ethical, honorable place, full of wondrous possibilities and potential goods. In fact, to understand Healers, we must understand that their deep commitment to the positive and the good is almost boundless and selfless, inspiring them to make extraordinary sacrifices for someone or something they believe in. Set off from the rest of humanity by their privacy and scarcity, Healers can often feel even more isolated in the purity of their idealism.

Also, Healers might well feel a sense of separation because of their often misunderstood childhood. Healers live a fantasy-filled childhood-they are the prince or princess of fairy tales-an attitude which, sadly, is frowned upon, or even punished, by many parents. With parents who want them to get their head out of the clouds, Healers begin to believe they are bad to be so fanciful, so dreamy, and can come to see themselves as ugly ducklings. In truth, they are quite OK just as they are, only different from most others-swans reared in a family of ducks.

At work, Healers are adaptable, welcome new ideas and new information, are patient with complicated situations, but impatient with routine details. Healers are keenly aware of people and their feelings, and relate well with most others. Because of their deep-seated reserve, however, they can work quite happily alone. When making decisions, Healers follow their heart not their head, which means they can make errors of fact, but seldom of feeling. They have a natural interest in scholarly activities and demonstrate, like the other Idealists, a remarkable facility with language. They have a gift for interpreting stories, as well as for creating them, and thus often write in lyric, poetic fashion. Frequently they hear a call to go forth into the world and help others, a call they seem ready to answer, even if they must sacrifice their own comfort.

Notable Healers:

• Diana, Princess of Wales
• Vincent van Gogh
• Aldous Huxley
• Søren Kierkegaard
• Isabel Myers
• George Orwell

Fieldmarshal – ENTJ Personality

Extraverted Intuitive Thinking Judging type

Of the four aspects of strategic analysis and definition it is the marshaling or situational organizing role that reaches the highest development in the Fieldmarshal. As this kind of role is practiced some contingency organizing is necessary, so that the second suit of the Fieldmarshal’s intellect is devising contingency plans. Structural and functional engineering, though practiced in some degree in the course of organizational operations, tend to be not nearly as well developed and are soon outstripped by the rapidly growing skills in organizing. But it must be said that any kind of strategic exercise tends to bring added strength to engineering as well as organizing skills.

Hardly more than two percent of the total population, Fieldmarshals are bound to lead others, and from an early age they can be observed taking command of groups. In some cases, they simply find themselves in charge of groups, and are mystified as to how this happened. But the reason is that they have a strong natural urge to give structure and direction wherever they are – to harness people in the field and to direct them to achieve distant goals. They resemble Supervisors in their tendency to establish plans for a task, enterprise, or organization, but Fieldmarshals search more for policy and goals than for regulations and procedures.

They cannot not build organizations, and cannot not push to implement their goals. When in charge of an organization, whether in the military, business, education, or government, Fieldmarshals more than any other type desire (and generally have the ability) to visualize where the organization is going, and they seem able to communicate that vision to others. Their organizational and coordinating skills tends to be highly developed, which means that they are likely to be good at systematizing, ordering priorities, generalizing, summarizing, marshaling evidence, and at demonstrating their ideas. Their ability to organize, however, may be more highly developed than their ability to analyze, and the Fieldmarshal leader may need to turn to an Inventor or Architect to provide this kind of input.

Fieldmarshals will usually rise to positions of responsibility and enjoy being executives. They are tireless in their devotion to their jobs and can easily block out other areas of life for the sake of their work. Superb administrators in any field – medicine, law, business, education, government, the military – Fieldmarshals organize their units into smooth-functioning systems, planning in advance, keeping both short-term and long-range objectives well in mind. For the Fieldmarshal, there must always be a goal-directed reason for doing anything, and people’s feelings usually are not sufficient reason. They prefer decisions to be based on impersonal data, want to work from well thought-out plans, like to use engineered operations – and they expect others to follow suit. They are ever intent on reducing bureaucratic red tape, task redundancy, and aimless confusion in the workplace, and they are willing to dismiss employees who cannot get with the program and increase their efficiency. Although Fieldmarshals are tolerant of established procedures, they can and will abandon any procedure when it can be shown to be ineffective in accomplishing its goal. Fieldmarshals root out and reject ineffectiveness and inefficiency, and are impatient with repetition of error.

Notable Fieldmarshals:

• Napoleon Bonaparte
• Julius Caesar
• George C. Marshall
• Golda Meir
• Carl Sagan
• Edward Teller
• Margaret Thatcher

Mastermind – INTJ Personality

Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging type

All Rationals are good at planning operations, but Masterminds are head and shoulders above all the rest in contingency planning. Complex operations involve many steps or stages, one following another in a necessary progression, and Masterminds are naturally able to grasp how each one leads to the next, and to prepare alternatives for difficulties that are likely to arise any step of the way. Trying to anticipate every contingency, Masterminds never set off on their current project without a Plan A firmly in mind, but they are always prepared to switch to Plan B or C or D if need be.

Masterminds are rare, comprising no more than one to two percent of the population, and they are rarely encountered outside their office, factory, school, or laboratory. Although they are highly capable leaders, Masterminds are not at all eager to take command, preferring to stay in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead. Once they take charge, however, they are thoroughgoing pragmatists. Masterminds are certain that efficiency is indispensable in a well-run organization, and if they encounter inefficiency — any waste of human and material resources — they are quick to realign operations and reassign personnel. Masterminds do not feel bound by established rules and procedures, and traditional authority does not impress them, nor do slogans or catchwords. Only ideas that make sense to them are adopted; those that don’t, aren’t, no matter who thought of them. Remember, their aim is always maximum efficiency.

In their careers, Masterminds usually rise to positions of responsibility, for they work long and hard and are dedicated in their pursuit of goals, sparing neither their own time and effort nor that of their colleagues and employees. Problem-solving is highly stimulating to Masterminds, who love responding to tangled systems that require careful sorting out. Ordinarily, they verbalize the positive and avoid comments of a negative nature; they are more interested in moving an organization forward than dwelling on mistakes of the past.

Masterminds tend to be much more definite and self-confident than other Rationals, having usually developed a very strong will. Decisions come easily to them; in fact, they can hardly rest until they have things settled and decided. But before they decide anything, they must do the research. Masterminds are highly theoretical, but they insist on looking at all available data before they embrace an idea, and they are suspicious of any statement that is based on shoddy research, or that is not checked against reality.

Notable Masterminds:

• Walt Disney
• Ayn Rand
• Niels Bohr
• Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Ulysses S. Grant
• Stephen Hawking
• Lise Meitner
• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Isaac Newton

Inventor – ENTP Personality

Extraverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiving type

Inventors begin building gadgets and mechanisms as young children, and never really stop, though as adults they will turn their inventiveness to many kinds of organizations, social as well as mechanical. There aren’t many Inventors, say about two percent of the population, but they have great impact on our everyday lives. With their innovative, entrepreneurial spirit, Inventors are always on the lookout for a better way, always eyeing new projects, new enterprises, new processes. Always aiming to “build a better mousetrap.”Inventors are keenly pragmatic, and often become expert at devising the most effective means to accomplish their ends. They are the most reluctant of all the types to do things in a particular manner just because that’s the way they have been done. As a result, they often bring fresh, new approaches to their work and play. They are intensely curious and continuously probe for possibilities, especially when trying to solve complex problems. Inventors are filled with ideas, but value ideas only when they make possible actions and objects. Thus they see product design not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end, as a way of devising the prototype that works and that can be brought to market. Inventors are confident in their pragmatism, counting on their ability to find effective ways and means when they need them, rather than making a detailed blueprint in advance. A rough idea is all they need to feel ready to proceed into action.

Inventors often have a lively circle of friends and are interested in their ideas and activities. They are usually easy-going, seldom critical or carping. Inventors can be engaging conversationalists, able to express their own complicated ideas and to follow the ideas of others. When arguing issues, however, they may deliberately employ debate skills to the serious disadvantage of their opponents.

Inventors are usually non-conformists in the workplace, and can succeed in many areas as long as the job does not involve too much humdrum routine. They make good leaders on pilot projects that test their ingenuity. And they are skilled at engineering human relationships and human systems, quickly grasping the politics of institutions and always wanting to understand the people within the system rather than tell them what to do. No matter what their occupation, however, Inventors display an extraordinary talent for rising to the demands of even the most impossible situations. “It can’t be done” is a challenge to an Inventor and elicits a reaction of “I can do it.”

Notable Inventors:

• Walt Disney
• Abraham Lincoln
• Richard Feynman
• Benjamin Franklin
• Maria Montessori
• Thomas Edison
• Nikola Tesla
• Hedy Lamarr
• Sally Ride
• Howard Hughes

Architect – INTP Personality

Introverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiving type

Architects need not be thought of as only interested in drawing blueprints for buildings or roads or bridges. They are the master designers of all kinds of theoretical systems, including school curricula, corporate strategies, and new technologies. For Architects, the world exists primarily to be analyzed, understood, explained – and re-designed. External reality in itself is unimportant, little more than raw material to be organized into structural models. What is important for Architects is that they grasp fundamental principles and natural laws, and that their designs are elegant, that is, efficient and coherent.

Architects are rare – maybe one percent of the population – and show the greatest precision in thought and speech of all the types. They tend to see distinctions and inconsistencies instantaneously, and can detect contradictions no matter when or where they were made. It is difficult for an Architect to listen to nonsense, even in a casual conversation, without pointing out the speaker’s error. And in any serious discussion or debate Architects are devastating, their skill in framing arguments giving them an enormous advantage. Architects regard all discussions as a search for understanding, and believe their function is to eliminate inconsistencies, which can make communication with them an uncomfortable experience for many.

Ruthless pragmatists about ideas, and insatiably curious, Architects are driven to find the most efficient means to their ends, and they will learn in any manner and degree they can. They will listen to amateurs if their ideas are useful, and will ignore the experts if theirs are not. Authority derived from office, credential, or celebrity does not impress them. Architects are interested only in what make sense, and thus only statements that are consistent and coherent carry any weight with them.

Architects often seem difficult to know. They are inclined to be shy except with close friends, and their reserve is difficult to penetrate. Able to concentrate better than any other type, they prefer to work quietly at their computers or drafting tables, and often alone. Architects also become obsessed with analysis, and this can seem to shut others out. Once caught up in a thought process, Architects close off and persevere until they comprehend the issue in all its complexity. Architects prize intelligence, and with their grand desire to grasp the structure of the universe, they can seem arrogant and may show impatience with others who have less ability, or who are less driven.

Notable Architects:

• Ludwig Boltzmann
• Charles Darwin
• Albert Einstein
• Thomas Jefferson
• David Keirsey
• James Madison
• Gregory Peck
• Robert Rosen
• Adam Smith
• George Soros

__________

For the past twenty years Keirsey has continued to investigate personality differences, to refine his theory of the four temperaments and to define the facets of character that distinguish one from another.

His findings form the basis of Please Understand Me II, an updated and greatly expanded edition of the book, far more comprehensive and coherent than the original, and yet with much of the same easy accessibility. One major addition is Keirsey’s view of how the temperaments differ in the intelligent roles they are most likely to develop. Each of us, he says, has four kinds of intelligence, tactical, logistical, diplomatic, strategic, though one of the four interests us far more than the others, and thus gets far more practice than the rest. Like four suits in a hand of cards, we each have a long suit and a short suit in what interests us and what we do well, and fortunate indeed are those whose work matches their skills. As in the original book, Please Understand Me II begins with The Keirsey Temperament Sorter, the most used personality inventory in the world. But also included is The Keirsey Four-Types Sorter, a new short questionnaire that identifies one’s basic temperament and then ranks one’s second, third, and fourth choices. Share this new sorter with friends and family, and get set for a lively and fascinating discussion of personal styles.

 
References

1. Jung, C. G. (1971). Psychological types (Collected works of C. G. Jung, volume 6, Chapter X)
2. Briggs Myers, I. (1980, 1995) Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type

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Create an infographic like this on Adioma

From the new biography Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, I learned about the existence of thousands of illustrated pages of notes that explore everything from how birds fly to how a fetus fits in the womb. These are not just sketches that you would expect from an artist – they are full of scientific facts and original discoveries.

We often think of art and science as two separate worlds. People in general seem to be good at one or the other. Leonardo was the rare exception of a person who did not seem to view art and science as separate. Likewise, in information graphics both scientific fact and aesthetetics are required.

From a personal perspective, it is interesting to see how Leonardo suceeded in pursuing both. As an infographic designer, I often run into the limitations of my knowledge – I could be more systematic if I knew more math, better at perspective drawing if I knew more geometry, better at colors if I knew more about optics.

Leonardo seems to have let himself spend decades on pursuing answers to questions such as how to calculate the area of a circle. His scientific experiments consumed decades of his life. Not even necessary for his art. And, yet maybe they were because Leonardo strove to create paintings that we not just pretty but also scientifically sound. He studied optics to render light and shadow correctly. He dissected cadavers so that he could model human muscles in whatever body position his paintings required. And as his notebooks show, he went into much greater detail than he needed.

Leonardo has made so many discoveries that to some degree he seems superhuman. How did the man find the time? Interestingly, in the many notebooks that survive there is almost no mention of himself and his personal life. The infographic above is my attempt to represent whatever imperfect information we have about his private life from the biographers. I am not sure that Leonardo would be happy to see this, but I think his life story gives us hope that one lifetime is enough for an imperfect human to make a good-faith attempt at perfection.

infographic created on Adioma
face illustration by Daria Baitaliuk

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Create an infographic similar to this on Adioma

In 1990, this way of measuring a personality was popularized by John Digman.

Today many psychologists believe The Big Five personality traits, acronymed OCEAN, and also known as “the five-factor model” or FFM, sufficiently describe the reality of humanity: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

By the way, you can take the test here.

In no particular order, the five personality traits are:

Openness to experience

A degree of intellectual curiosity, creativity, and a preference for novelty.
Openness is measured on a continuum from curious to cautious. Being curious also results in being inventive. Being cautious in turn leads to being consistent. People who are open tend to show their emotions, appreciation for art, and unconventional ideas. This tendency leads to having strong personal preferences for a variety of activities over a disciplined routine. In the extreme, though, openness leads to unpredictability and high-risk behaviors.

Conscientiousness

A tendency to be organized and dependable.
Conscientiousness is measured on a continuum from organized to careless. Being organized in turn results in a persona who is efficient. Being careless gives the benefit (or the disadvantage, depending on your point of view) of being easy-going. Highly conscientious people prefer making plans to spontaneous behavior. In the extreme, conscientiousness looks like stubbornness. Low conscientiousness looks like flexibility and spontaneity at best and sloppiness at worst.

Extraversion

A tendency to seek the company of others and talk.
Extraversion is measured on a continuum from energetic to reserved. Being energetic allows a person to be outgoing. Being reserved leads to a solitary type of personality. Extraverted people tend to feel most energetic when they are in the company of others. They re-charge by interacting and talking. In the extreme, extraversion is seen as attention-seeking. Low extraversion results in a reflective personality. Too much of this behavior makes one look self-absorbed. Generally, extraverts appear more dominant in social settings compared to introverts.

Agreeableness

A measure of one’s trusting and helpful nature.
Agreeableness is measured on a continuum from compassionate to challenging. We see compassionate people as friendly. They seem to cooperate with us. Detached people appear to challenge us. In general, they seem suspicious towards others. In the extreme, agreeableness looks like naïveté or even submissiveness. In the opposite extreme, low agreeableness looks like competitiveness which can be seen as “being difficult” or untrustworthy.

Neuroticism

Predisposition to psycological stress.
Neuroticism is measured on a spectrum from nervous to confident. Nervousness in turns allows for sensitivity; while confidence allows one to feel secure. Sensitive people tend to experience anger, anxiety, depression, and psychological stress in general. At its high extreme, neuroticism manifests itself as a reactive and excitable personality with high energy but at the same time, it can be perceived as unstable. On the other end of the spectrum, high stability looks like a calm personality while at the same time being uninspiring and unconcerned.

You might ask how out of all possible personality traits these five would somehow be the most important.
As you see in the infographic, this theory is not about 5 specific traits, but about 5 polarities. In other words, each of the 5 traits points to a continuum between 2 extremes, for example: curious and cautious. In between these extremes there is quite literary an infinite number of possible traits, that would make one either more curious or more cautious.
That’s why in making this diagram it was important to show the essential part of this theory which is the spectrum or the continuum or the gradation between 2 opposite qualities of the same personality trait.

In this chart, it was also important to show that every personality trait has a flipside, like the other side of the same coin. For example, if someone is easygoing, which seems like a good thing, they are also careless. If someone is consistent, they are also cautious. These traits are positioned on the opposite sides of each circle to show that they define the same personality traits, just from different perspectives.
Why does this diagram look like a wheel?
When I make an infographic, the process starts with finding the relationship between the categories. What defines a good infographic is the ability of the author to show you the relationships without overwhelming you with the detail. So, how do these big 5 personality traits relate to each other? Is one of them more important? If yes, that would be a hierarchy, which would call for a tree diagram. Does one come before the other? If yes, this chart would be a timeline. But in this case, all personality traits are equal and they come in no particular order. That’s why it is a circular diagram.

__________

Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are by Daniel Nettle. The core of the book discusses in depth the “big five” traits: extraversion, neuroticism, conscientious, agreeableness, and openness. The author illustrates each trait with a portrait of a real-life person who exhibits it showing the complexity of how these 5 traits combine to different degrees to form a personality.

There is an alternative system to the personality traits structure altogether: the personality types. While a person can possess several traits, they can only be assigned one type. The most common competing theory to the Big 5 Personality traits is the 16 Personality types by Meyers-Briggs based on Carl Jung‘s original classification.

Since the times of Hippocrates, humans have tried to find a system to structure all people into types. Hippocrates (460–370 BC) observed that people can generally be organized into four categories that he called “humors”: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. Next, Galen (AD 129 – c. 200) developed the first typology of temperament in his dissertation “De temperamentis”, and searched for physiological reasons for different behaviors in humans. Galen named them “sanguine”, “choleric”, “melancholic” and “phlegmatic” after the bodily humors.

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Learn how to make infographics

Infographics exist because we recognize visual patterns faster than we read text. In short, infographics are fast, text is slow. Why? We scan text sequentially. One word at a time. We scan pictures in different places at the same time. You have a natural ability to do this.

Think about what this really means for a second: essentially, we found a way to understand more information faster. Infographics promise to make us smarter. Seven years ago, my reaction to this was, “Where do I sign up?” In this article you will see the big picture perspective on infographics that I have condensed out of 7 years of my work. Here is what we will cover:

To start our discussion, first, it makes sense to de-mystify infographics. So what is an infographic? It is just a map. Infographics are rich maps for information in general. So “infographic” is simply a new name for an old thing. Why invent a new name? Because there is something special about now: we are looking at mountains of new data with no radically new tools to make sense of it. Infographics are our tool to deal with complexity. This is a different challenge than maps used to solve describing the world as it is.

Why Infographics

The word “infographic” first started appearing consistently in the 1960s.^[1] Since then we have not reached complete agreement on what infographics are. Here is what most people agree on: that infographics are some combination of data and design. By “data”, I mean both numbers and facts.

This definition is incomplete, though. A more important part is missing here. It is not obvious because it is transparent. This transparent thing is what makes infographics work. That is work better than any other type of pictures for understanding complexity. Let me give you an example.

The subway map. At first, it seems like nothing special. We look, we ride. We take the subway map for granted. And this is what makes it so genius: no matter which country you are from, your language, age, or background, we all understand it the same way. Whether you go to Hong Kong, or Tokyo, or Kiev you will use the same map as the rest. This almost never happens between people.

When is the last time you met a stranger and she understood you perfectly? Exactly.

You might be thinking, “That’s a pretty obvious design… how else would you design it?” Bingo. It means the map succeeded in showing you information without you noticing how it did it. You saw the substance without seeing the form. A transparent design shows you the information, not the design.

This is the hidden power of infographics. And this is something we rarely experience in visual communication. Yes, the irony is that as a designer the best design I can do is the one you will not notice. And it is not that you would ignore this kind of design. There is nothing to ignore about it either. It just looks so matter-of-fact, so self-effacing that you would not think to pay attention to it.

Speaking of attention, we all run into this problem. Remember the last time you argued with someone? You probably tried to explain your point. But instead of listening to what you were saying, they focused on how you said it. They might have picked a word out of context, or they took issue with your tone or complained that you said it too loud.

When this happens to me, I wish I was a subway map which brings me to the big problem all of us are trying to solve with infographics: the problem of human communication.

The Story of Infographics

The world runs on communication. Without communication, we would all die. Surprisingly, communication itself is an unsolved problem.

Here is the problem: to send a message to another person, you need to communicate it both clear and fast. This puts us in a double bind: if we explain it fast, it will not be clear; if we make it clear, it will not be fast. So the trillion-dollar solution to the communication problem is finding a shortcut to clarity and speed at the same time.

We have a record of bouncing between being either clear or fast but not both. Fast communication comes through emotions and senses, like seeing pictures, for example. Clear communication comes through logic and language.

You might be thinking, “What if we used both at the same time?” Poets can deliver emotions fast. Laywers can give you clarity if you listen for a while. So then, do we become poetical lawyers? Or lawyerly poets? Sadly, “emotional logic” and “logical emotions” negate each other leading to complete confusion. Then the real question is: how do we use both logic and emotion, both text and picture, both data and narrative without making each lose its meaning?

Solving The Problem of Communication

In the beginning, we were sitting in caves and wanting to talk to each other. Words were hard to come by so we invented drawing. We drew a bull on a cave wall.

This was fast communication. Except, what did it mean? Everyone in the cave had a different take on the bull. Some thought it was “the bull I ate for the dinner”; others thought it meant “Danger, bull in this area.” Then we came up with a brilliant idea – all of us can agree on what the picture of the bull meant. We also agreed on exactly how to draw it. We standardized the bull picture. That was a breakthrough – we invented writing! And then, before we died, we told our kids to keep drawing the bull the same way.

Our kids were sad when we died. Actually, death has always been our biggest problem. Eventually, kids of their kids who became the Pharaohs of Egypt found a way around death. Sort of. The afterlife, it turns out, is a place from which you can come back. But only if you have a map. So they designed a map and put it right on top of the tomb – it showed the specifics about who you were during your life.^[2]
In one page, we learned to show the whole life of a person!

At some point, not just the Pharaohs and gods wanted to write. A poor upstart nation, the Phoenicians saw the power of written language when they met the Egyptians in the markets of Babylon.  But they had no time or money to learn thousands of Egyptian pictographs. Instead, they made a quick poor man’s version stripped down to only twenty-two almost random marks. The alphabet was born!^[3] Their writing was clear but slow. They ended up needing thousands of letters to say anything important. Now we were communicating clearly but slowly.

Making The First Infographic

In the meantime, one of our favorite pastimes was war.  We fought to get land from neighbors. Once a war ended, someone had to draw the new borders. We couldn’t solve this by just drawing bulls or just writing letters. Again, we came up with a solution – draw the land, draw bulls on top, and write letters next to them – all on the same page. We invented maps.

Now any king could order a map. The world was big and flat and we felt we could draw the map any way we wanted. It was year 267 BC when a Greek named Eratosthenes said he figured out how big the world actually was.^[4] He called this a scientific fact because you could redo his math and get the same result. Based on his calculation, he showed the whole world in a single page. We now had the first scientific map. Scientific, but still wrong.

It would take us another 1,700 years to find out that the world was much bigger than Europe and Asia. Some brave men sailed off the map and found more continents.  One such traveler from Portugal Diogo Ribeiro drew up the first world map based on real data.^[5] That was the year 1529.

Just as you reach the end of the world, it has a funny way of expanding. Only 80 years later, an Italian named Galileo Galilei started mapping outside of this world altogether. Looking in his self-made telescope, he painted the first map of the Moon from different angles in a single page. Not that Galileo was an artist. In fact, none of the people you will meet in this article were. They all were trying to communicate a message using pictures where words were not enough. And this is where we got our first infographics.

Inventing The First Chart

Any artist will tell you that it is easier to draw what you can see than what you have to imagine. So how about communicating what you cannot see? Productivity, love, and inflation, for example, are all invisible.

The temperature outside was also invisible to an English boy named William Playfair. Every morning he marked on paper the thermometer readings with his brother. The marks were nothing special until one day Playfair connected them with a line. The line showed dramatic changes from winter to summer. By 1786, he thought of the brilliant idea – that anything under the sun can be shown as a line, a rectangle, or a circle proportional to its size. The line chart, the bar chart, and the pie chart were born.^[6]
Playfair’s contemporaries thought that charts and pictures, in general, don’t help explain anything. They pointed out that the lines and bars had nothing to do with what they supposedly showed. (It also didn’t help that Playfair was a fraudster and a blackmailer among his many other activities.) The intellectuals of the day all agreed that visualization is showing the obvious to the ignorant. How far we have come! Today Playfair’s charts are the standard for showing serious statistical data.

Learning to Layer Information

It was the year 1854 when for no apparent reason, a disease was killing people in London. Not everywhere in London, but only on certain streets. One street would see a lot of people die, but neighbors on the next street over were perfectly fine.

Looking at the map of London, a physician named John Snow wanted to find a connection between the streets and the deaths from cholera. Using Playfair’s method, he charted the deaths on one page. Then he looked at the map.
Why not put the chart right on top of the map? That’s what he did. Then he added another layer – the location of water pumps. And this is where he found his answer. One particular water pump sat right next to the street with the most cholera deaths. We now learned to show many layers of information in one page.

Ok, if you can show three layers, then why not show one hundred? Maybe we can layer information indefinitely. Maybe we finally found the answer to the communication problem?

Stretching The Limits of Complexity

In the history of communication, there is one image that stands out for how much it shows in a single page. Fast and clear, French engineer Charles Minard shows us how the largest army ever assembled by that point in history perished.^[7]

Napoleon leads half a million soldiers to invade Russia. Only a quarter reach Moscow. Only 10,000 come back home. In one page we see seven layers of numbers spelling out the tragedy: the number of soldiers, the major battles, the rivers they cross, the towns they reach, their direction, the dates, and the frigid temperatures. The thickness of the gold line is men going to Moscow, the black is men returning. The tragedy of a whole war told in one page: of 422,000 men only 10,000 returned.

Making Numbers Human

Wait, but there are no people in Minard’s chart! How can we show a human tragedy without showing the people? If you didn’t read the text next to the diagram, you would never know that we are talking about real people and real deaths.
This problem bothered another philosopher in Austria,  Otto Neurath (1882–1945), who wanted to show physically what the numbers meant. His goal was to make statistics interesting to the masses. If we are talking about people, we should show people.

For this, Neurath went all the way back to the beginning of this story and borrowed Egyptian pictographs. Stacking them next to each other showed numbers more physically than Playfair’s abstract bar charts. Neurath invented a pictographic language he called Isotype.^[8]

Teaching by Analogy

What if you wanted to show something so complicated that you could not translate it into simple pictographs? This question brings us to the man who is considered the grandfather of modern infographics, German doctor  Fritz Kahn (1888–1968). He wanted to explain medicine to people who knew nothing about medicine.

How? He thought up imagination-rich analogies. A person is like a factory. An ear is like a car. The food you eat in your lifetime is like a freight train going to your mouth. These images are so surprising that they are hard to forget. Most importantly, we now learned how to say more by using what we already know through analogy.

This last invention is quite different from the earlier ones. Analogy gives us a way to explain anything, no matter how abstract or complex. This is the what makes infographics a universal solution to the communication problem. Remember how we were looking for a shortcut to speed and clarity at the same time? We likely found it in showing information by analogy.

Finding The Modern Infographic

So what is an infographic today? Most people today experience it is a pre-generated infographic template with graphs, connectors, and icons. Most infographic tools help to create infographics, but not to make sense of the message inside them. The frontier is now in making meaningful infographics.

What is meaningful? Truthful, useful, and entertaining, preferably at the same time. The top authority on visual statistics,  Edward Tufte, gives us the principles of truthfulness. Information architect  Richard Saul Wurman shows us how to make information useful. Graphic designers like  Nigel Holmes and David McCandless show us how to make information fun.^[9]

So did we solve the billion-dollar problem? We are likely on the brink of it now. It is still day one for infographics. By now we know that the way to solve the problem is somewhere between the two extremes. On the one side is the technical abstract charts invented by Playfair and promoted by Tufte and on the other is the human-centric subjective storytelling through analogy shown by Otto Neurath and Fritz Kahn.

Now that you know the story, we can dig into the field of infographics today. You will notice that the infographic still struggles to differentiate itself from its relatives: data visualization, data journalism, and visual journalism. Knowing that all these children are of the same mother should make the definitions less confusing.

The Definition of An Infographic

The origin of the word “infographic” is a blend of “information” and “graphic” that first appeared consistently in English language books around the 1960s.
The term information graphic appeared slightly before it. Today “information graphic”,  “infographic”, and its shorter form “infograph” all refer to the same thing.
The concept of an infographic straddles the fields of design, journalism, statistics, and information architecture. The word itself reveals two of the four components that make up an infographic:

1. data (information)
2. design (graphics)
3. journalism (writing)
4. function (information architecture)

Information is what is shown, the design is how it is shown, journalism is why it is shown, and the function is who it is shown to.

How is an infographic different from its related fields? If we look at the intersections of these related fields, we can discover infographic’s relatives.

• generative art (data + design) –  a computer generated artwork that is algorithmically determined
• data visualization (data + design + journalism) – techniques used to communicate data or information by encoding it as visual objects (these deal with numeric data only)
• statistical graphics (data + design + function) – techniques of displaying patterns found in unprocessed data
• technical writing (data + journalism) – use of verifiable data to support statements made by the writer
• data journalism (data + journalism + function) – a genre of writing that relies on verifiable data to convey a specific message, tailored to an audience
• statistics (data + function) – methods of extracting patterns out of unprocessed data
• illustrated writing (design + journalism) – use of design techniques that integrate images with an article
• visual journalism (design + journalism + function) – a genre of writing that integrates images and writing to reach a specific audience
• information architecture (design + function) – methods of structuring information that make it useful to the end user
• expository writing (journalism + function) – a genre of writing that explains and informs as opposed to persuade

There are also three fields that study infographics:

1. information design which is considered a branch of statistics
2. visual journalism which is a branch of journalism that uses data and design
3. information architecture which studies the function of information relative to its audience

Richard Saul Wurman who is considered the founder of information architecture as a field (he is also the creator of the TED conference) said:

You only understand something relative to something you already understand.

Since infographics show both quantitative data (statistics) and qualitative data (knowledge), we should not be surprised that there is a war of definitions.

In the field of statistics, Edward Tufte, a former Yale statistics professor, is widely considered as the most authoritative figure. Although he does not use the word “infographic”, he sets out the rules for a “graphical display”, a term that includes infographics.

On the other side of the spectrum is the work of Otto Neurath, who believed visual language should look like what it means. Comparing the work of the two suggests that neither one prevailed, and the definition of an infographic today sits in between theirs.

Infographic Definition and Its Dilution

The definition of the word “infographic” diluted around 2010 which coincides with its rise in Google searches.^[10] With new interest from advertisers, infographics have come to mean almost any image and text combination. Before this dilution happened, infographics generally lived up to a higher standard.
The difference between an infographic and a pseudo-infographic is easy to tell:

1. Infographic elements do not violate rules of visual perception (gestalt, constancy, unconscious inference)
2. The infographic copy is concise
3. Comparisons are made within a context and on a scale

Visually, telling an infographic from a pseudo-infographic is straightforward. Infographics tend to

1. Use colors sparingly
2. Show relevant illustrations
3. Allow space to be empty
4. Show clear labels, scale, and axes
5. Use coherent icon styles
6. Present an obvious unified visual structure – not a series of disconnected sections

Types of Infographics

How do we divide infographics into types? We can classify infographics based on the techniques used to make them and the strategies used to distribute them to an audience. Here is a list of a possible infographic classification by:

1. level of interactivity: static, interactive, dynamic and motion infographics
2. visual structure: geometric template, object-based template, chart-based template
3. file format: static image (JPEG, PNG, PDF, SVG, GIF), vector image (SVG), webpage
4. aspect ratio: desktop, mobile, print formats
5. delivery:  social media distribution, viral distribution, live distribution
6. function: edugraphic, explanation graphic, knowledge graphic, info-poster

By visual structure, I divide infographics into one of these three categories:

1. Charts and diagrams. This is the most abstract kind that uses known chart types.
2. Abstract analogies. These infographics use a well-known visual template, like a subway map, to explain something else. For example, the subway map of human psychology.
3. Analogies and allegories. Here the objects are more complex than in the second type.

I compiled a large list of infographic types by visual structure with examples for each here in “How to Think Visually.”

Separately, my team and I created a large catalog of types of graphs and charts organized by their popularity.

Infographics Versus Data Visualization

Infographics are not synonymous with data visualization. An infographic can contain one or more data visualizations. The presence of a narrative tailored to an audience is what differentiates an infographic from a data visualization.

Put differently, data visualization shows uninterpreted facts and infographics showing facts with interpretation. So then, data visualization shows objective but less relatable information. Infographics show subjective and relatable narrative.

Comparing a data visualization and an infographic on a similar topic, we can see that infographics have a unified narrative and data visualizations show facts separately from each other. In infographics facts are related; in data visualizations facts are discreet.

Same dataset, different visualizations

Here is a real-world example of a data visualization and an infographic made from the same data set (only the year is different). In the infographic on the right the designer focused on the data and added little decoration which makes this a good example to compare with a data visualization.

The infographic offers plenty of empty space for us to notice the insights. For example, we see that if cancer were a single disease, it would be the biggest killer. Another insight is on the lower left: we often blame wars for humanity’s problems but war only accounts for 0.05% of life years lost today.

To an expert epidemiologist, these insights might be redundant, though. The data visualization of the left is still more objective.

In a nutshell, infographics are different from data visualization in at least these ways:

How Infographics Work

Infographics work by triggering our visual perception to process images efficiently. Not any kind of image triggers visual perception in the intended way, though. Some types of images backfire, in fact. Overuse of color, for example, can make an infographic unreadable. The desire to fill the empty space, which is a common psychological tendency, leads to the message of an infographic getting lost. There are many ways to abuse infographic design. Some of them are quite common.

This topic is big enough that I will explain it in a separate upcoming article.
In short, for an infographic to work as intended, it has to follow the rules of visual perception. There are three groups of them:

1. Unconscious inference
2. Gestalt Perception
3. Perceptual Constancy

Unconscious inference tells us that people will make assumptions and conclusions about your infographic from incomplete data, based on their previous experiences. Think about what your audience already knows and who they are. They will project their own self onto anything you show them. If there is a conflict, it will lead to confusion.

Face or vase?

Gestalt translates both as “pattern” and “whole”. Gestalt theory seeks to explain how people perceive separate visual components as wholes. According to this theory, there are eight main factors that determine how our visual perception automatically groups elements into patterns:

1. Proximity – objects located near each other are related to each other
2. Similarity– similar objects are related
3. Closure – incomplete objects are perceived as complete
4. Symmetry – symmetrical objects are in the same group
5. Common Fate (or common motion) – objects moving together are related
6. Continuity – the same object should look the same no matter where it is
7. Good Gestalt– a preference for patterns that are regular, simple, and orderly
8. Past Experience– elements tend to be perceived according to an observer’s past experience

Perceptual constancy is our bias in favor of seeing things as if they don’t change. An example of this is people looking at eggs in a room with a red light and still thinking they are seeing white eggs. In fact, the eggs appear pink or red. But a person knows that eggs are white and overrides the information coming from the eyes with information from the brain. We have many kinds of this bias towards colors, shapes, lighting, distance, and even people. If you ever mistook someone for another person because you saw them in an unexpected place, you experienced perceptual constancy.

People look at your infographics will look for the white eggs. You might be showing quail eggs with brown spots, for example, defying their expectations. From a distance, they might mistake quail eggs for some insects, for example, because quail eggs are quite rate.

Since every infographic presents its own imaginary world to a reader, we have to test that other people will see our reality the same way as we do. The rules of visual perception tell us what not to do. They will not teach you how to create an infographic but they will help you not to destroy it. For most people not trained in art, these rules will not be intuitive.^[11] They are incredibly easy to violate if you do not know them. This is because art is not taught seriously in most schools as part of general education. So we cannot be surprised that most adults’ visual literacy is at a 5th grader’s level. Even very intelligent people might not notice gross design mistakes. This is nothing to worry about as long as you study these rules. They are quite easy to learn because all of them are visual.

__________

The Future of Infographics

The doom and death of infographics is a popular topic of discussion. ^[12] But infographics are far from dead. In fact, they are more alive than ever. The search interest for infographics has only continued to grow without interruption. The evolution of its definition, the rise in search traffic, the numbers of university courses on infographic design all point to infographics exploding in popularity. It is still day one.

As a means of displaying a lot of information in a static format,  infographics are irreplaceable and bound to live on. Inevitably, they will evolve to be more interactive. Aside from the obvious popularity in communication and marketing, I think infographics will play a bigger role in these sectors:

1. Education infographics

Teachers already successfully use infographics as visual aids. Many do not have the financial resources to create high-quality infographics yet. This situation will likely change because some media companies actively produce education-related infographics that set the example for the rest of the industry. ^[13]

2. Government infographics

Today governments are already using infographics to tell citizens about the state of the country. In the long-term, this might lead to more transparency in government spending, simpler ways to apply for things, and track the effectiveness of government policies.

3. Data Science

The volume of data collected online doubles every year.^[14] Mining for insights in the growing volume of data will put new demands on infographics to show more information, more accurately, and with more meaningful and human insights.

Infographics Worth Your Investment

Data is the new oil but unlike an oil refinery that only needs to meet a technical standard of quality, you can mine data for meaning endlessly. There is a chance you will make the equivalent of the subway map of your industry. A sort of ever-green graphic that everyone in your field will know. There is a chance that you will visualize Wikipedia, or map the universe beyond its known borders, or maybe you can visualize the human psychology of self-doubt.

Whatever your communication problem might be, it is quite solvable after all. Yes, it is not as simple as finding the right words or pretty pictures. It is about finding a balance between logic and emotion, accuracy and meaning, text and image, simplicity and complexity.

If we knew what will be important tomorrow, this balance would be easy to strike. We don’t know. Tomorrow is a mystery. All we have is uncertainty about the future and a past to look back on. Because of this, the only type of infographic worth investing in today is one that will stand the test of time. An ever-green infographic. This kind of infographic shows objective knowledge that has long-term relevance. It is not about what matters now. It is about what always matters. For example, it is not about whether “you should raise startup funding for your seed round”. It is about “How Startup Funding Works” (my ever-green infographic).

This brings us to the real reason why we are here, “here” as in “why we are here on this planet.” I hope it is not too presumptuous of me to say that you are reading this because you want your work to matter. Not just today, but also tomorrow. That you want to make something that lasts, and maybe even outlasts you.

You are not alone in this desire. Timeless design is possible. We know this because we learned it from people who lived long before us. With this big picture in mind, maybe the curtain will drop, and we will see a solution for ourselves whether we are doing a multi-million dollar marketing campaign or starting a new blog.

Footnotes

1. ^ You can see when “infographic” and the terms related to infographics appeared in books in Google Books Ngram Viewer

2. ^ An example of a design for the afterlife on slab stela of Nefertiabet.

3. ^ The story of how the alphabet became our “quick hack” that replaced visuals is fascinating. We think of the alphabet as a default, but it has not always been that. Today some people already communicate alphabet-free using only emojis, for example.

4. ^ This first world map is missing a lot of the world but it is the first map made based on an actual calculation of the Earth’s circumference. Even more interesting is Eratosthenes’ invention of the grid lines for latitude and longitude that we still use today.

5. ^ The first scientific world map is missing still missing Australia, Antarctica and New Zealand, but it is a phenomenally rich map showing not just the continents and countries but the kinds of houses people live in, the trees and animal, the mountains, and the marine navigation routes.

6. ^ The world’s first bar chart looks a lot like the ones we make today. It was first published in The Commercial and Political Atlas in 1786. The first pie chart followed in 1801 in Statistical Breviary.

7. ^ See the English version of Minard’s map to appreciate its clarity.

8. ^ How Neurath created thousands of symbols for Isotype not being a designer himself is a story worth reading. Isotype: Design and Contexts.

9. ^ I encourage you to compare the infographic schools of thought on both extremes of the data versus story spectrum. Edward Tufte is a statistician. He is the most data-intensive. David McCandless is a former journalist. He offers up data with a writer’s insight. Nigel Holmes is a long-time designer of explanation graphics, often with a funny tone to them.

10. ^ According to Google Trends the search volume for the word “infographic” started rising in 2010 worldwide.

11. ^ Luckily these design principles are not hard to learn, I recommend that you read the book by W. Lidwell, K. Holden, J. Butler The Universal Principles of Design. It explains each principle in one page, with illustrations for each. Please read it. It will open your eyes to how you see everything around you. You cannot outsource your design taste to a designer completely. How can you judge if your infographic shows what you want it to show if you don’t know how other people will see it? You can’t intuit these principles unless you are an artist.

12. ^ Social media infographics are often blamed for the death of the informative, truthful, and useful infographic according to FastCo Design article “What Killed The Infographic”, 05.06.15

13. ^ This study measured the student reaction to the use of infographics in an anatomy class. The Pennsylvania Department of Education has a page promoting infographics to the public. Among the media companies making education-related infographics, Good Magazine does that best job in my opinion.

14. ^To get a feel of the growth in data collected worldwide, read this summary.

Even so, infographics are expensive to make. At first, I solved this problem by becoming a designer. But for most people, finding a tool that makes their type of infographic is a better solution. As you saw, none of the people in this article were designers. For myself,  I made an automated infographic tool, Adioma to speed up my infographic making.

So please don’t get discouraged. Find the tool that you feel comfortable using, and focus on the meaning.

This is the first article from the series “Learn Infographics” intended as a definitive guide on the topic of infographic definition, infographic history, and infographic types.

The post What Is an Infographic appeared first on Adioma.

The story starts with the man you see on every public bathroom door along with the woman. He has a way of showing up in airports and on highways. But never for long. If he is the world’s most recognizable icon, why don’t we see more of him? This is about to change.

The Most Recognizable Icon

This man turns out to be one of the most common and recognizable icons in the world. First designed by AIGA and adopted by National Park Service, it made its way into many interfaces and more recently into infographics. It turns out, this kind of icon is the easiest to modify without losing all meaning.   

Same man, different lives.

It also turns out that this kind of icon is enough to tell powerful stories. Like this one.

This infographic reached more than 1 million people and counting.

(Full infographic)

And this is only five icons. No illustration. There is also no magic. Icons, in my opinion, give you that most direct way of telling a story without distracting with the details.

I did not invent this idea. Otto Neurath did. Except he borrowed it from the Egyptians. So this trick is at least 3,000 years old.

So, today we are releasing a searchable set of infographic icons that use this man as the single style guide. Because he is so universally recognized, you can do a lot of things with this symbol such as showing numbers and making charts and diagrams. You can also make new icons out of him.

A New Way to Search Icons

To see the whole collection of the “man”, “woman” and other icons, you can search by visual element here.

It gets better. You can even combine any two of the visual elements to search by. Even three. For example, let’s say you are working on a presentation about crowdfunding. You know you want an icon that should people and money in it. You can select the person icon and the dollar sign icon to see all the icons that have people and money in them.

Why Infographic Icons

When I started making infographics, I spent a lot of my time searching for icons that could tell a story. I noticed that most icons were made for interfaces and were not expressive enough to use an in an infographic. This is how this collection started. And now you can use it for free.

How to Use Infographic Icons

If you are working inside PowerPoint or Illustrator, you can download the PNG or the SVG and one the file and then paste the icon into your document. This would also work for PowerPoint.

If you want to then use some of the icons in your article, you can paste them directly into your editor as a Base 64, which is just a link that you paste.

You can color and re-size the icons for free.

If you want to save time from having to download and upload the icon, head over to adioma.com to get your free trial. You can insert any icon directly into your document in Adioma.

The post Infographic Icons – Why and How to Use Them appeared first on Adioma.

Download This Icon Collection

The 48 emotion icons come in two groups: positive and negative emotions.

Why Emotion Icons and Not Emojis

Adding regular yellow emojis to a presentation or an infographic might feel too casual. ? I am talking from the design point of view. The trouble with the emojis is that some of them use gradients, a lot of colors, and many have a double meaning that you may or may not be aware of. When you need to add emojis in presentations and infographics, these serious but expressive icons will do the job.

These icons are part of a much larger collection of icons that we have inside Adioma. You can search these icons by keyword or by visual elements and use them in your infographics.

Icon Style

Since infographics tend to use a lot of icons on a single page, these icons are optimized for being readable even when they are very small. These are called glyph icons – they have more fill and little negative space. This makes it possible for them to look good next to the text, other icons, illustrations, and graphs.

Modifying These Icons

The icons are fully editable. You can change the color, size, and even the shape.

If you are using the icons in PowerPoint or Keynote, double-click on an icon to change its color or to scale it.

If you are working in Illustrator or Photoshop, use the SVG file.

The PNG files are not editable. You can paste those icons directly into your text document or into a presentation. They are saved in small resolution to fit better alongside text.

You are not required to credit us but we would love to see your creations. Please post your links in the comments. We might be able to give you design advice, too.

The post Emotion Icons (free download) appeared first on Adioma.