I’ve had a few calls following the comment from Dave Gray, Founder and Chairman of Xplane, after I posted a compliment, criticism and plea about an article they’d put together. Well, the latest is that he found, and forwarded to me, the article that I always rave about when trying to illustrate great “visual thinking” - as his company puts it.

Here it is and its already done the rounds of my tech solutions, usability team and business creation teams so either check it out in Business 2.0 - “How to build a bulletproof Startup” or let me know and I can let you have a copy of the pdf that Dave sent me (If you’re reading this, ok with you, Dave?). Xplane did the illustrations and Michael Copeland and Om Malik created the guide.

I’ve asked Dave when he’s going to come to Asia so we can use his stuff in Charged. Doesn’t seem to be on their agenda just yet but I’ll let you know how far behind me you are in the queue:)

Thanks Dave.

As a self-confessed Wired magazine addict I’ve come to recognise the name Xplane as the provider of really superb visual representations of the article or issue being highlighted. I’ve not only come to recognise their name but I’ve actually refered people to Wired to check out their work.

They describe themsleves as the “Visual Thinking Company”, again incredibly apt. However, it strikes me as slightly odd that the experts in breaking down how things/processes work and find simple ways to depict it, have a problem with chosing the work that best highlights what they themselves do.

I have trawled their site, trawled the internet and all of their best pieces seem to be hidden somewhere in the ether. Not only that but their published work isn’t mentioned on the site. Has there been a parting of ways? If anyone ever finds the article about how to start your own business which has a visual running alongside the article over many pages let me know because I’d love a copy.