I’ve spent most of my career looking for a community — a collection of like-minded folks who care about information design the same way I do. People from all different backgrounds, different specialties, and different places along their journeys. People I can learn from, share with, talk shop, knock back a few beers with. People …
Tag: information design
Revisiting My Undergrad Honors Thesis
In April of 1999, after about a year and a half of research, writing, and designing, I defended my undergraduate Honors thesis on information design. Eighteen years have passed, and I’m finally sharing it publicly. But my story here isn’t about the content or the details (see the PDF below). It’s about the experience and the lessons …
Uniting for Understanding
Well, 2017 has gotten off to quite a start! If there’s one bright spot that has come out of the tumult of 2016 and ongoing unrest triggered by the new administration, it’s the resounding call to action to reassert and recommit to values and principles long taken for granted. People are reaffirming identities, freedoms, …
Making Sense of the Information Implosion
Time to open Pandora’s Box! This post touches on some deep and controversial problems surrounding information today, most of which have been heightened by this year’s election. More work is needed to develop this thinking-in-progress further. In the past twenty years or so, we have seen an information explosion the effects of which are all too familiar these days. That so much …
An Accessible Future
What will the future of information design look like? Often, technology rises up to propose the answer: better software and analytic tools, more sophisticated visual forms, ubiquitous touchscreen-based and virtual information environments, immediate data and information access anywhere. Sci-fi fantasy made real seems an appealing prospect to some, and technology has fast been catching up: it’s only a matter …
Saving Information Design History, Part 2
Information design has had more than a few missing pieces in its story for some time, as described in Part 1, so rather than curse the fact that the problem exists, it makes more sense to start filling in the gaps, one by one. With knowledge. What follows is a very preliminary reading list on information design’s formalization, from the early …