To accompany the set of cards, I also wanted to trace and catalogue the moments in diagrammatic manuals where the hand of the maker appears. In How to Diagram, I write:
A type of projection takes place when reading a diagram. We make it perform for us so that it is functional. In our minds, the diagram is not static, but moving; we map it onto our own situation. The hands within a diagram become our hands, and we see the connection between the lines in the figure and the object in front of us, no matter how abstract the translation. In this way, a diagram is instructing us to forget itself. It must be anonymous — near invisible — so we can make it useful for our own purposes. Often it is not the diagram itself that we are interested in, but what it can offer us.
The following spreads are collected from manuals / handbooks on how to make [things]. They are arranged as a typology, moving from thumb, to finger, to fingers, to hands.
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