Euclid's Elements, written around 300 BC, is the classic geometry textbook, and it normally labels diagrams with letters. In 1847 the civil engineer Oliver Byrne published The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid, where colour and simple shapes stand in for the letters. Each proof is shown with blocks of red, yellow, blue and black so the reader can follow the logic at a glance. The layout looks like Bauhaus and De Stijl design a century before those movements. Byrne's version faded for a time, but it was revived in later decades, and Edward Tufte later cited it in writing on information design. Taschen published a facsimile in 2010.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.