J. TECHNICAL WRITING AND COMMUNICATION, Vol. 36(4) 353-381, 2006 LONDON THROUGH ROSE-COLORED GRAPHICS: VISUAL RHETORIC AND INFORMATION GRAPHIC DESIGN IN CHARLES BOOTH’S MAPS OF LONDON POVERTY MILES A. KIMBALL Texas Tech University ABSTRACT In this article, I examine a historical information graphic—Charles Booth’s maps of London poverty (1889-1902)—to analyze the cultural basis of ideas of transparency and clarity in information graphics. I argue that Booth’s maps derive their rhetorical power from contemporary visual culture as much as from their scientific authority. The visual rhetoric of the maps depended upon an ironic inversion of visual culture to make poverty seem a problem that could be addressed, rather than an insurmountable crisis. This visual rhetoric led directly to significant features of and concepts in western societies, including the poverty line and universal old-age pensions (social security). From their first public uses, which many agree date from William Playfair’s 1786 Commercial and Political Atlas, information graphics have provided advantages Playfair himself described clearly and eloquently: The giving of form and shape, to what otherwise would only have been an abstract idea, has, in many cases, been attended with much advantage; it has often rendered easy and accurate a conception that was in itself imperfect, and acquired with difficulty [1, p. 3]. From Playfair’s claims, we can see that information graphics have always been thought of as clear and immediate visual representations of data. According to this idea, information graphics should behave as if they were the objective outputs of scientific instruments—as tools of measurement and observation—rather than as 353 Ó 2006, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.