This is a cover from the Cerîde-i Adliye — the Journal of Justice — published in the early years of the Turkish Republic, somewhere between 1924 and 1926. A legal infographic, it tracks court cases: incoming (blue circles) and outgoing (yellow circles), radiating out from a calligraphed centre. It is also, simply, a beautiful object.
The journal had been running since the late Ottoman period, originally serving the new Nizamiye court system that was slowly replacing the old decentralised network of Islamic judges. By the time these covers were printed, the Republic had arrived and the legal reforms were dramatic — in 1926, Turkey adopted the Swiss Civil Code almost verbatim, the Italian penal code, and definitively retired şeriat. These data visualisations sit right at that hinge point: Ottoman Arabic script, Gregorian data, European infographic methods, Turkish ambition.
The covers were found via the Letterform Archive and are held by the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. The Public Domain Review published them on 3 June 2026.
Today’s note may make no sense but it’s what I’ve been working on for days and so it’s what has arrived on the page. A postcard from me to you.
My working theory of external brain relativity. A way to structure my brain and my external brain in order to make sense of the vast amounts of information coming into it and actually be able to work with it. It’s a complete crossover with all my tech knowledge work.
Notes some time in the future. But I’m very geekily excited.
Nerdily yours, A.
The card includes a diagram. The diagram is a thesis. Across a century, two people reached for the same tool.
