Here, the typographic tree is one branch of a tree diagram, reaching from medieval drawings to Shneiderman’s treemaps. Lima has skilfully organised his book to reveal these developments.

The tree diagram, in particular, has its roots in the Middle Ages. “In Medieval Europe, 800 years ago, visual communication was critical,” Lima says, drawing from his book, which examines the ...

Lessons on language families are often illustrated with a simple tree diagram that has all the information but lacks imagination. There’s no reason linguistics has to be so visually uninspiring.

900 Years of Tree Diagrams, the Most Important Data Viz Tool in History. Trees are a data viz tool that has outlived empires and endured huge upheavals in the arts and sciences.