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 …
Tag: writing
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 …
Conversations, Not Clicks
For those who’ve been following my blog for a while, you may have noticed the frequent departures from information design and other related topics. Rather than write about what’s popular in conversations of-the-moment and sustain a magazine-like consistency of material I generate, I often follow my curiosity and try to sort through the questions in my mind, …
Say What You Mean
The Oxford English Dictionary, recognized as the “definitive record of the English language,” contains about 600,000 words, but only about 35,000 to 75,000 words make it into the average person’s vocabulary. With such a broad palette at our disposal, it should seem easy for us to assemble just the right combinations of words to capture …
Twisting Open the Oreo
Before anyone gets the wrong impression, I don’t claim to be a professional writer. I do, however, love writing in all its forms and have pursued it throughout my life. In college, I even worked as a writing tutor and took extra classes in literature and creative writing, outside my major. Today, I’m often called …