I am a slow thinker, so I need to draw to make sure I am keeping track of everything. I draw to see what’s in my head and what people tell me, so more often than not, I’m drawing in a meeting at the flipchart or whiteboard, during a conversation, or at least once or …
Tag: thinking
Making and Meaning
Like many other service professions, information design is typically defined by what the practitioner makes, how they make it, and what benefit comes from it. Invariably, the “making” part of information design work is what usually gets the most attention both within and outside of the field. With steadily increasing awareness of information design as a real …
Embrace the Wait
Have you ever stopped to think about waiting? We spend so much time just waiting for some things to happen, other things to pass. Consider the moments of waiting that happen over the course of a typical day: on line at a register, in traffic, in a doctor’s office, on a plane, etc. The very concept of waiting — a momentary suspension …
The “Busy” Trap
I used to think being busy was a good thing, a necessary thing. “Busy” meant your mind was occupied, gears turning, neurons firing, things getting done. A mind at work was a healthy mind, an efficient mind that saw no challenge too great, no work pile too daunting. As I’ve cycled through different phases of “busy” in my still …
Understanding, Fast and Slow
Have you ever felt like the only person in the room who didn’t get something? And you felt too embarrassed to ask for an explanation? Maybe it was in a classroom or business meeting or a social gathering where everyone was vigorously nodding in agreement, chuckling at an inside joke, or jumping to the next topic of …
Rational Thinking Made Tangible
Over the years, I’ve come to understand that information design work is as much a process of reasoning and investigation as it is an activity of pure design decision-making and production. In the earliest stage of my career, I thought information design was only about making graphics that put facts and figures in a clear, …