This book explores the nature of one of the most ancient tools for nonverbal communication: drawings. They are naturally adaptable enough to meet an incredibly wide range of communication needs. But how exactly do they do their job so well?

Avoiding the kinds of aesthetic rankings of different graphic domains so often made by art historians and critics, Manfredo Massironi considers an extensive and representative sample of graphic applications with an open mind. He finds a deep mutuality between the material components of images and the activation of the perceptual and cognitive...