A Century of Popular Science

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How has Popular Science changed since it was first published in the late 1800s? It got a whole lot more colorful, for one thing. Here's 125 years of the magazine's history captured in one massive 74 million square pixel image.

The 11550 x 6480 pixel image, created by William Huber, a student of media theorist Lev Manovich, shows one Popular Science spread from every 5 years since its inception, starting with a dense, text-heavy layout in 1882 and adding illustrations, color, and eventually photographs along the way. That's a lot of flying cars! See if your browser can handle the full size image here.

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Manovich's students did a similar mapping for the cover of Time magazine from 1923 to 2009. When we switch to our new layout it might be time to give Giz the same treatment. [Flickr via Infosthetics]