Today I did some research for my upcoming book with Prof Yves Pigneur: I went to a Border’s bookstore in New York and browsed the business (strategy) literature for their visuals and design. Basic conclusion: except for the cover there are no to little visuals, even for the most innovative book contents.
The most visual strategy illustration I found was in Kim & Mauborgne’s blue ocean strategy book. It is part of their concept to allow for a visual comparison of the differentiation strategy of a company. Though I do like their book, I believe it lacks the same visual creativity than all other strategy books.
As to their form & usability my conclusion is that the large majority of business (strategy) books are totally un-inspirational. So I moved on to architecture books, where I expected some great visual presentations. Of course architecture is more tangible than business (strategy). Yet, I don’t accept that excuse…
My nicest surprise during this little research was the discovery of a domain that makes great use of visuals: personal style. Look at the following photo & text. Wouldn’t that be a nice illustration when talking about customer strategies and “personas”?
The most notable exception in the field of business books was the one I bought. It’s called The Art of Engagement – Bridging the Gap between People and Possibilities. The author, Jim Haudan, uses illustrations extensively in his book and uses them as a tool for engagement… not surprising.
Though this lack of using visuals in business (strategy) books seems like a detail, I think it is essential when we are talking about strategy today. Strategies have to be communicated clearly. In today’s complex world this is only possible through visuals that simplify the complex and make it clear.
Visualization is also a technique that uses one of our most important senses – the ability to see. While it was difficult to include images in the early days of books, this is now different. Why are strategy gurus still not making use of today’s technology?
I hope I can change all this and bring in a fresh breeze… However, I’m still looking for the right designer, who can help us with our book 
Great observation Alex. Yes, the lack of visuals is quite bad. You may also want to draw inspiration from Kathy Sierra and her Headfirst series in Java and other topics. Used to be a popular blogger as well.
The trouble is that most imagery is not designed with the text in mind. Much of it is stock photography and not particularly effective. I think 98% of the inclusion of imagery distracts from what message is being conveyed through the word. When it is done well, it is brilliant. Rules of the Red Rubber Ball by Kevin Carroll is an superb example.
So to be clear, I completely agree with your point.
And we have even touched on the costs from both the designer as well as printing/production costs.
PS I may have a designer. This is not a cousin’s boyfriend. It is someone we hired to lay out and provide imagery to a business book coming out from Portfolio (Penguin) in 2009. Drop me a note if you are interested.
Not to be a contrarian, but there are of course “guru-books” that use visuals a lot. I’m thinking in particular of the books by Tom Peters, whose “Re-Imagine!” was extreme in the way it tried to use creative visuals. I have a pile of others in the same vein. Interestingly, these generally seem to sell quite poorly, possibly because they are viewed as less weighty and serious. One publisher I talked to was very apprehensive (and she was a really cool and design-interested person) of all such attempts, since she was convinced it hurt sales. Weird, but…
Hi Alex,
good observation indeed. After all a colleague of mine Kathryn Best with whom I’m lecturing for the BA in Design Management in Lucerne next month has written a great, also ‘visually’ designed book on the topic:
http://snipurl.com/dmbook [www_amazon_com]
The great thing is that there will be more books on the field of design management to be published over the next year(s) (more on this when we chat next time
.
As AVA is a swiss publisher in Lausanne you might want to get in touch with them as well?
Really nice to see an “economist” discovering since some months the “architects” world…
your last image: I espacially like the “schemes on skin”. Good image for visually explaining that for some people drawing is a part of their essence!
Alex,
I fully agree with your findings, any way they are some exceptions, although I do not know exactly what do you intend to achieve in your book, for me so far the best example in good strategy illustrations came in Strategy Maps from Kaplan and Norton. Is something like that what you are looking for?
Regards.
Jairo H. Venegas
modelonegocios@gmail.com
Rajagopal, Ralf, Tsattersten, Alf: thanks all for the recommended references!
tsattersten: I'll get back to you regarding the designer. Under which email address can I reach you?
Alf: Interesting comment! I did indeed forget some notable guru-exceptions. Kotter's "Iceberg is melting" on change is a great example, which people also pointed out in email comments. And Daniel Pink did a full comic on Johnny Bunko. Both are actually in my library.
I think I'll still do the visuals despite sales predictions. It will help the book become clearer…
Olivier: Architecture is one of my sources of inspiration
Modelo: My methods do indeed resemble those of Kaplan & Norton's strategy maps. However, I would like to go muuuuuuch further than them in terms of visuals for the book!
Since I stumbled on a book that was like a revelation on what design could do, in terms of layout and illustration but also and especially in “browsability”, some questions kept coming to mind:
1.Why are strategy, and most business books for that matter, so visually boring?
2.Why don’t they apply design’s power to communicate complex concepts in simple visuals?
3.Is all of this about being academically correct? or are they really that boring?
(flashback) One day at the bookstore, browsing the design section this plastic combed book caught my eye:
http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-MyCompLab-Anne-Frances-Wysocki/dp/0321420535
so right there and the it struck me like a lightning: here it is, the redesign of the book!
Moral of the story:
Step1: Get to a bookstore
Step2: Ask for “the DK Handbook”
Step3: Repeat 1 and 2 until you get it
Step4:(while disregarding the content) look at, feel, browse, take pictures of it
Step5: use it as inspiration in your writing, designing and publishing endeavor!
All the best!
David
PS:
1.It’s not about the content it IS the structure.
2.There are several versions, the one I saw was the plastic comb one (which seemed a bit fragile, for a high wear and tear use)
3.This is the book’s official website: http://www.ablongman.com/dkhb/index.html
Go ahead, sky is the limit, any way keep in mind your target!!!
Success
I just found your blog, you are working with the right folks in Dan Roam, Dave Gray and David Sibbet! For a good bridge between the all text and super visual I would suggest looking at for financial models is Eric Helfert. Also, for your book, have yo looked at Nancy Duarte (Duarte Design and the book slide:ology)? Thanks, I work in this area too so will be frequent reader.
Dave: Nancy Duarte’s book is a good model of what I would like to achieve in the business model field! Wonder if it can be done…
Hi Alex,
A pre-Internet book that covers the “visual/reading ergonomy” is “Information Anxiety” by Richard Saul Wurman.
I don’t know how much the current edition is different from the one I’ve read but perhaps you could look at it and tell me what do you think.
Cheers,
Claudio D’Ipolitto
Thank you, Claudio. Your recommendation is now on my “waiting list”. I just bought another series of books for 200.- Euro this week…
There are some nice examples of ‘different’ business books in Dutch. Both bestsellers by the way…
http://www.extent.nl/downloads/eckarts_notes_voorproefje.pdf
http://www.ennulaatikmijnbaardstaan.nl/spreads.html
lots of succes with making your book different.
Wouter
Thanks Wouter, interesting, though I can’t look deeper into those contents
Try Slide:ology
This business book about why design matters in communication presents a very (graphically) compelling case for why simple visually attractive information delivery is so important.
This book, by Palo Alto based Duarte design [who helped Mr Gore in the development of his presentation for An Inconvenient Truth] is brilliant
i think thats a very interesting book. Visuals are really important in., i guess everything. It catches the interest of the people and having a great visual design is a good way to let your potential buyers to try or acquire your product.
Alex,
Hi, great comments on communicating via the book. I have come to your site to find out more about business models, specifically as a sales person. But on the topic of book design, you may be interested to see a book by Donald Alcock entitled “Illustrating C”. This is the most marvellous book on a very prosaic topic, which is programming in the “C” language. A very long time ago I took a course in C and acquired six textbooks on the topic. Alcock was very dissatisfied with other texts, and invented an entire visual grammar for this textbook. Unfortunately, no one seems to have picked up on the innovation, which was intended to replicate a very good set of classroom notes. Certainly it was particularly suited to notes about programming, but the result was orders of magnitude better than anything else, even to this day. I got an “A” in the course on “C”! Anyway, thought it might be intriguing and I always thought Alcock’s book should be better known. You can see excerpts which make the case, on Amazon.
John Morris
Toronto, Canada
Dear John, many thanks for the tip. Any intriguing book is helpful in my preparation
Alex
Havind read many books on management and strategy these last months for my MBA thesis, I strongly agree with Alex on the lack of visual thinking in most of the academics literature.
I am a visual person and when I look for books to learn specific conceptual topics like strategy and innovation management, I always browse them quickly to make sure visual graphics are there to support their thinking. Exceptions are from management Gurus like Gray Hamel, Peter Drucker or Jack Trout whose concepts are so insightful that we forgive them for their traditional books’ design.
A good example is the articles from Harvard Business Review. They are my preferred resource because they systematically provide excellent structure, content and visual graphics, diagrams, frameworks that make me understand their point much better. This a good lesson for most of management professors which tend to publish long pages full of boring text.
Also, Dion Hinchcliffe on his blog on Enterprise Web 2.0 is a good illustration of complex concepts brought to you via powerful visuals.
Visual graphics are extremely powerful when supported by well-thought-out design thinking.
They turn complex concepts into simple ideas! They communicate concepts that stick.
Thanks Alex to facilitate the readers’ burden of getting out the clutter.
“If you unclutter your mind, you’ll think more clearly” says Jack Trout in his book “The Power of Simplicity”.