Each week, TAXI will curate a selection of new products and projects from Fast Company's Co.Design, a web magazine that showcases the people, products and projects that are roiling the design world. This series will join other picks from technology to fashion to architecture and interiors, all culled from select blogs and websites.


Infographic of the Day: A Mind-Blowing History of Sci-Fi

Artist Ward Shelley has produced another fine, fine, fine hand-drawn flowchart that will blow your mind: This time, it's dedicated to the 2,500 years of intellectual history that have produced the modern sci-fi genre.

Which sounds totally ridiculous, but just look at the chart and you'll understand its beauty.

Now, in lesser hands, the chart might have simply been a record of all the various strains of sci-fi as we know it. But Shelley is as much a historian as he is an artist, and he tracks the very first flowering of sci-fi to the Enlightenment's fascination with science, which begat Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which begat Jules Verne.


Click for larger image

Shelley manages to encapsulate dozens of PhD's in just that little bit of real-estate—just witness all the counter movements that attend the Enlightenment. But the chart continues with the same fanatical attention to detail and surpassing wit.

More cool design picks, courtesy of Fast Company's Co.Design:




1. A Building Facade Uses Lights to Paint
Central London
A structure fit for 'The Grid'.

2. Pop-Up Restaurant Will Sit Atop Famous Buildings and Mountains
Don't lose your lunch.

3. A Haute-Couture Take on the Sexy-Nurse Costume
For a porno set in the 33rd century.

4. Wall Clock Turns Time Into a Colorful
Venn Diagram
The color wheel of time.