Comparison charts
A comparison sheet is not a table with numbers in it. It is an arrangement that makes a quantity felt — the A series drawn at true relative size so the halving rule is obvious at a glance, fruit lined up so that a difference in sugar is a length rather than a figure.
That is a kind, not a style: a comparison can be plain vector work or fully illustrated. What it cannot be is a list, because a list is precisely the thing it exists to replace.
They work best where a decision gets made — beside a printer, in a kitchen, at a dressing table.
KINDS OF BASS
eight instruments at one scale · what each is about and how it sounds
ACOUSTIC BODY SHAPES
what each one was made for · from the front room to the stage, at true scale
SAMPLE RATES
what band each one describes, how much it leaves the filter, and what a minute weighs
THE BEAUFORT SCALE
thirteen forces of wind — from water like a mirror to a wave of fourteen metres
THE TEN CLOUD GENERA
three levels of the troposphere to one scale, and the ten genera that live in them
COLOUR GAMUTS
sRGB, Display P3, Rec. 2020 and ProPhoto RGB on the CIE 1931 chromaticity diagram
THE VERTICAL PLANET
from the Challenger Deep to the summit of Everest · one scale, nothing compressed
THE FUJITA SCALE
six categories of tornado damage — and the two different winds assigned to them
THE MOMENT MAGNITUDE SCALE
what a single step hides: ×10 in recorded amplitude and roughly ×32 in released energy — drawn to true scale
THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM
eighteen decades of frequency · and how much of it the eye sees
THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE
five categories of hurricane wind — and how much more damage each next one does
SPECTRAL LINES
five gases on one wavelength scale, from the violet edge to the red