Designing diagrams, a graphics/u2019 semiotic is a theoretical essay written for Emilio Patuzzos master degree in communication design at the Politecnico di Milano./u00a0

The thesis aims to provide a new method to approach the more and more popular discipline of visualising data by promoting a new semiotic-based method to design such /u201cartefacts/u201d. Within a/u00a0two year research the book/u00a0was/u00a0mainly inspired and based/u00a0by the/u00a0great thinkers/u2019 theories:

Umberto Eco, Rudolf Arnheim, Louis Hjelmslev, Roman Jakobson, Roland Barthes, Charles Peirce, Dan Sperber, Deirdre Wilson, Jacques Bertin

and many others./u00a0By/u00a0reinterpreting these reflections and thoughts about semiotic, linguistic and design, I structured/u00a0the/u00a0/u201cDesign del diagramma/u201d./u00a0The design of the book was kept very simple to encourage reading and to avoid any/u00a0distraction. The upper part of each page reports information about the current paragraph, chapter and section, providing an intuitive tool to discover the thesis. The red-plastic package was made to prevent any damage to the book when shipped to all people who supported me in this work. The format was inspired by the

Einaudi PBL

/u2019s/u00a0 series, a work I/u2019ve always looked up to as a/u00a0symbol/u00a0of good design and as a symbol of the spreading knowledge at fair prices.