It is often through our visual heritage that we perceive and build a notion of world and space around us.

According to J.B. Harley (1987) there has probably always been a natural impulse to create maps. Cartographic maps are historically synonymous of power, since geographic representation and knowledge in them concentrated influences, moved reigns, borders, and controlled market routes. As a system of signification, the credibility of a map is seldom contested, and these objects "possess an 'extraordinary authority', even when they present errors, which may be lacking in other types of image" (Harley, 1987). This is a structure agreed upon by centuries of development, appropriation, graphic familiarity and analogy to physical realities, which has allowed them to be an object quickly retained by sight and quite immersed in semiotics as a "general metaphor" of our space.

The resilience of these objects has also allowed the construct of imaginary spaces, realities and unrelated geographic context, made credible by the overlap of information onto cartographic representations.

This study intends to frame the concept of information visualization in the context of maps. If all maps are graphic representations of a bigger reality, when do they become infographic representations of reality?

With this in mind, we will address how these graphic representations combine notions of information visualization and visual heritage in the field of design. We also propose to demonstrate how design continues to shape our knowledge and define other objects of representation, by the way they interconnect with our visual perception of truth.

Keywords
Maps, Representation, Design, Information Visualization, Infographics.

References

Harley, J. (1987). The History of Cartography (Vol. 1). (J. Hardley, & D. Woodward, Eds.) Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.