The universal building blocks of visual representations

An extended framework is presented for analysing and creating visual representations of information, which has its origins in Diagrammatics (Richards 1984) and The Language of Graphics (Engelhardt 2002). The approach adapts ideas taken from linguistics and semiotics and draws on the rich literature about diagrams, graphic language, and data visualization. At the core of this approach is the notion of a diagram as a spatial configuration of graphic elements that expresses meaning by way of graphic relationships between those elements.