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4.5.06
Lou Fuiano
At a glance "The post industrial information age, if it means nothing else, means more messages: messages that must be sorted, sifted, and represented in ways that people understand, enjoy and most importantly, can use. As we become inundated with information, thoughtful, perceptive design will become a mark of distinction, a competitive edge."
The rejection of information seems no surprise seeing as we are virtually swimming in an unwieldy amount of it. It's no wonder than that design and designers are ubiquitous. In Norman's book, The Design of Everyday Things, he points out that this glut of a design culture could create as many problems as solutions. This may very well be true. The design process becomes more harried and less thoughtful. Such is our plight. We have the tools to generate and dispense information, we also seem to have the appetite to consume it. In this chapter of Johnson's book, he uses a favorite example of a rail map for the London Underground. By organizing the information using a grid system that plots the rail path in constraints of 45 degree angles, the rail lines are easier to pick out and follow. While inaccurate to the true path of the line, it's a graphic device that proves very successful. The concept of the map always fascinated me. The idea that we put our trust in the map maker to get us somewhere quickly and safely. It's things like this that drew renewed respect from me for the craft of information design. It has an integrity. It has to guide you. Much like a reliable news source, we put our trust in a map. In the 80's, I was very drawn to graphic design that used arbitrary elements to create an atmosphere. The information was not always important. The mood and the level of ornamentation was the rule. I once heard a lecture by a very clever designer/artist named Dan Friedman. His work was a hyper-stylish display of many things at once. I was a fan. He mentioned that his work was often criticized for being Illegible. He made an effort to point out the difference between Illegible and unreadable. While I still enjoy looking at this work, I am increasingly more impressed by the function of designing to inform. The connection of the map maker and the user. Design becomes tangible through visual elements, principles of organization, and methods of creating and evaluating form. These components of design activity are not unlike those that govern other communication disciplines, such as language. By becoming familiar and fluent with these components, you can better produce and interpret messages. Unlike language, however, visual components need not necessarily adhere to a logical set of rules that are easily transferable among design problems.
Michael Johnson's piece also mentions the use of the vernacular of information design as expression. This is a pet design device of mine. It seems to awaken the eye as well as drive the point. I once saw a poster that was a time line of someone's life. From birth to death, each year was marked by a single word which summed up the year. This simple poster floored me. I stared at it forever trying to imagine the events that led up to each summation for each year. I have since held a new found reverence for the design of information; for it's power and it's unique voice. |