Man’s Reach Into Space by Roy Gallant is a marvelous looking book from 1959 on flight and space exploration. It discusses the physiological and technical issues with flight; how the body has to overcome some barriers in order to fly higher and faster.

Although these are not proper infographic/data visualizations, instead are technical/scientific drawings, there is much to learn from these drawings. The book’s illustrator—Lee Ames—uses a color scheme that is bright and engaging. Data visualization has emphasized a minimalist design to maximize the data-to-ink ratio. At times, I wonder if that’s really the optimal case. As a child, adolescent, or even adult—wouldn’t you sometimes prefer to read a book with color?

Check out Michael Stoll’s collection of photos on Flickr from each page of Gallant’s book.