Human beings are primates, like other primates our primary sensory modality is vision, and we process complex and abstract information best in visual terms. When someone says 'I see what you mean' theories of embodied cognition propose they are doing precisely that, using the vision networks of the brain to process complex information.

When approaching a problem, a vision, a process or a system, words often fail to capture its totality, it is challenging to maintain all the information in a linguistic context simultaneous to the present point of focus. We go through conversation and read texts in the first person, but comprehension is often acquired with some distance.

The use of metaphoric architecture, visual | variable equivalency and an understanding of gestalt perception informs the practice of graphic representation. When they deal in meaning as well as information, graphics can be a potent tool for interfacing abstract concepts and human beings, it allows us to take a step back from a complex situation, to view it from afar, to reveal the intangible topographies of process, and to know where we fit within them.