I am a designer who uses visual methods to find clarity and direction in fuzzy situations.
So my online presence has been pretty quiet for the past 6 or so years. My last post, a career retrospective, was in 2019, and while I attempted some social posts here and there, it seemed best to just stay offline altogether. I also had a lot going on during that time: intense client work, a major book project, a big move, and varying degrees of physical and mental exhaustion after each. There…
On this date ten years ago, I reflected on the first decade of my career as a designer, a professional milestone not unlike reaching a scenic overlook on a steep mountain climb or a mile marker on a rocky long-distance trek. As I looked back over the years and wrote each lesson, I conjured up all my successes and failures, the people who shaped my work and my thinking, the projects that pushed…
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 who offer a sympathetic “I know, right?” when I…
In the worlds of information design and data visualization, there’s plenty of attention paid to the Data and Information side of the DIKW continuum and how to transform one into the other. If the problem is defined and data are readily available or researchable, it’s just a matter of doing the work — engaging process, skills, expertise, and tools — to create usable information. The…
Design is in a continuous state of flux. The more design evolves, the wider the pendulum swings between polarities: tradition versus modernity, old-school versus cutting-edge, slow-and-steady versus quick-and-dirty. So much design chatter today is like a perpetual tug-of-war, with fierce advocates, clever arguments, and strong emotions on both sides. The dualities below have become…
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. It’s about the experience and the lessons learned. My honors thesis was the official starting point for my…
What do you want to do with your life? Who hasn’t dreaded hearing this question? Finding the answer can take many forms: a buddinging talent during childhood, a sudden epiphany, a meandering life-long quest. Often, the choice is specific and fairly well-defined, some thing to aspire to: doctor, lawyer, teacher, painter, musician, football player, and so on. But there are those who find they…
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, and ideals in response to harmful political rhetoric and ill-conceived…
For me, 2016 will go down as the year of the gut, when reason and restraint took a holiday. Foundations were shaken, bigly. Concepts like data, information, fact, and truth were all sent through the wringer. Reality became a crowdsourced phenomenon, a channel you could change with the push of a button if the broadcast didn’t suit your tastes. This was also the year of peak device, when what became…
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…
Data visualization is no longer news. We’re well past talking about the “tsunami of data crashing upon our shores” and the staggering zettabytes and yottabytes of data we’re capable of generating. Everybody knows we’re visual creatures and that visualizations are like an express lane for information to get into our heads. We get it. There is no longer the need for…
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 twice a day when working alone on a project. Line by line, shape by shape, what emerges isn’t some stunning masterpiece…
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 days when the concept of information design began…
This post arrives coincidentally at the same time as the Information+ conference at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is among the few (and most recent) forums where serious information design practitioners and researchers are able explore and discuss key issues in the field. The spectacular lineup of speakers and talks reflects the calibre of discussion.…
“What the hell am I doing?” I ask myself on a Sunday morning, half-covered in grass clippings. The weather is warm and immaculate, ideal for a hike or picnic or lazy stroll through town. Instead, here I am clutching my Sears Craftsman line trimmer, dutifully mowing my overgrown lawn. There are blisters forming on my rawhide-gloved hands. I’m sneezing uncontrollably from all the…
As someone who’s slowly inching toward 40, I feel distinctly out of place with the present. It doesn’t feel like my present. The more I age, the greater the sense of anachronism. Three distinct realities are blurring together: the old world wisdom my grandparents conveyed to me during my childhood, the analog-to-digital transition through which I have come of age, and the Web…
As tax season feverishly comes to a close, it seems a fitting moment to consider a realm of design work that hardly gets any attention. Not the dull gray administrative documents like tax forms and instructions. Not websites like IRS.gov. Not tax preparation software like TurboTax. I’m talking about receipts. More generally, I mean all those little in-between design artifacts like tickets,…
Here’s a fun experiment: think up the wildest possible thing you can. Something unfiltered and completely off-the-wall. Go crazy. Hold that thought in your mind. Now, how outrageous is that thought? What would someone think of it? We’ll come back to that. We all have this amazing capacity to imagine. During childhood, imagination burns bright and roams freely. We dream up companions,…
“Community” is a term that gets tossed around so much these days, but how often do we stop to consider its fundamental meaning? It can evoke feelings of belonging, warmth, unity, and goodwill. It can be a source of identity. Community is how we have survived for thousands of years, sharing knowledge, resources, and basic necessities. Community sure is a wonderful thing. But the nature…
Some years ago, a friend of mine asked me what the information design scene was like in New York City. Surely, one would think that such a design-rich, tech-savvy communications industry hub like New York City would have something going on. I responded with a blank face: “What information design scene?” At the time, there were a few companies and people explicitly doing information…
We all struggle with the tension between the way we aspire to be and the way we are. Constructs like the New Year’s resolution only intensify the tug-of-war between the ideal vision of ourselves and the human creature we know ourselves to be (how’s that resolution holding up, by the way?). Often, we resolve to make lifestyle changes that help make us slimmer, healthier, more…
About four years ago, I railed against the state of design at the time. As a practicing designer, it deeply troubled me that the design world had become so self-absorbed that it lost touch with reality. News articles and blogs were celebrating design for the beautiful, delightful products that it brought into the world, and praising the rockstar designers whose sheer creativity produced such…
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 thing people do for a living — mainly…
The future is so now. Everywhere you turn, there’s some book, blog post, or conference about “THE FUTURE OF something-or-other” these days. The faster tech progress moves, the more impatient people become for the next new thing. There’s certainly nothing wrong with envisioning the future and imagining possibilities for what could be. Meaningful progress depends on it. But…
If you ask me what the hardest part of being an information designer is, only one thing comes to mind. It’s not developing an eye for layout or mastering all graphic forms. It’s not generating brilliant ideas or perfectly executing a concept on time and on budget. Nothing to do with finding the right content or data or discovering the optimal presentation. And actually no, it’s…
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 discussion before you could make heads or tails of what just happened?…
Information design, by nature, is concerned with making sense of the known: data, facts, observations, ideas. It involves taking existing content and putting it in a format that makes it more readily know-able. But rarely does information design acknowledge the missing, the unknown. A recent talk by Andy Kirk on representing the absence of data in visualizations rekindled my thinking on how much…
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, understandable format. I assumed that “clear” and “understandable” meant…
I’ve never been much of a talker. As much as I enjoy rich, far-ranging conversations, at heart I’m a quiet recluse who prefers silence to chit-chat. Dialogue is great and necessary, but there is a point where talk must translate into action. Looking back on the content I’ve read over the past year, a good portion of it is commentary about some problem or situation that needs to…
We’re in the midst of an information design information overload. Blogs, books, courses, and workshops proliferate, covering every hot topic under the sun: big data, data visualization, infographics, “vintage” information design, software, etc. And while there are a few helpful guides along the way to navigate through this space, digging through the layers of content and finding not just the gems…
We often think of visualization in the most tangible sense of the word: an image or representation of thoughts, data, observed phenomena — something you can look at. Visualizations conventionally take the form of a print document or on-screen display, but they also occupy environments and increasingly live on devices. Much attention these days is focused on the creation of such visualizations to…
The concept of the journey spans cultures and traditions around the world. Journeys form the core of ancient and modern narratives, from the hero’s quest to the experience of life from birth to death. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the connection between the philosophical and functional aspects of the journey construct, and where a new understanding of the past and present might be possible. How…
A recent conversation with some fellow visualization folk led me to question my own notion of what the visualization space should look like and how it should get there. Information design, as a visualization profession, is more than just how I earn a living. For me, it’s a deeply-ingrained way of seeing and being in the world. Sometimes, that desire to make things understandable is driven by…
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 precisely what’s on our mind and convey it in the best…
While doing research on the links between information architecture and information design, I came across a video clip of Richard Wurman talking about the origin of the term he has been credited with inventing. It isn’t the first place he’s told the story, so this particular video didn’t seem earth-shattering… until right around the 5:40 mark. Spurred by an apparent disdain…
Not long ago, most everyday problems were solved with little more than one’s wits, a dose of common sense, and one’s own two hands. Virtually any appliance or piece of equipment in a typical home could be serviced with a little mechanical know-how and a basic toolkit. Do-it-yourself guides such as the Time-Life Home Repair and Improvement series provided all the instruction one needed to tackle…
I have a love-hate relationship with content. One of my favorite things as an information designer is to dive into piles of content, analyze it, look for patterns, and visualize the stories buried within. The process of transforming raw content into usable information is not unlike the alchemical transmutation of lead into gold, and for nerds like me, no less magical. But it’s a whole…
Our lives are defined by boundaries — where we stand firm, where we yield, where we can tread, and where we are forbidden. Over time, we get a feel for the guardrails along our path, the hard edges of business and government and the softer edges of our social and personal lives. Every little decision we make, whether to cross a boundary, preserve it, push it further, or create a new one, shapes…
I’m officially calling for an end to the Information Age. For the past 60 years or so, we’ve made outstanding progress with information. Ever since we transformed the nature of information from something fixed and static to something fluid and dynamic, we’ve opened up whole new worlds of opportunity for its creation, transmission, storage and retrieval. We have become highly efficient at producing…
It is seventeen days after Hurricane Sandy. I’m sitting in my small home office bundled in three layers of clothing, with power but still without heat or hot water. Outside, the sun is bright and the flood waters have long since receded. Only water lines four to five feet high remain on the sides of homes and across garage doors. Many cars have still been left untouched since the storm surge, all…
Much like other crossover sensations from the creative world such as design thinking and information design, the visual thinking phenomenon has sustained interest for some time now. From the most staid corporate institutions to the most enlightened young startups, visual thinking techniques are being sought after as part of a new business toolkit in the quest to create “cultures of…
I talk a lot about information design and the confusion surrounding it, but I realize I’ve done very little to demystify what exactly it is that I do. Since my work is a hybrid of disciplines, it’s difficult to map my expertise to an existing, well-defined role or title that anyone might readily recognize. My present high-altitude explanation — helping people make sense of their world in order to…
Note: I’ve used “visualization” throughout to remain consistent with the language of both articles, but I feel the term is still ambiguous and tends to refer to data-driven works only. I spend much of my time sifting through RSS feeds, Google Alerts, e-mails, and tweets in search of those moments of insight that bring meaning and clarity to the visualization conversation. Most of…
For ages, humans have relied on artifacts to convey emotions, experiences, beliefs, and histories. Museums such as the Met in New York are a testament to the enduring power of the physical object across all world cultures. Terra cotta figurines, bronze weapons, gold and inlaid stone jewelry, silk tapestries, and other handicrafts are imbued with meaning both intimately personal and timelessly…
If the word “infographic” is starting to cause heart palpitations and uncontrollable urges to click associated links, then the term “data visualization” or anything plus “viz” is guaranteed to pack the house at events covering the subject. This bottomless appetite isn’t all about empty calories, however. There is growing interest in the rationale behind…
Back in 2008, Michael Bierut wrote an excellent post on Design Observer about his collection of notebooks — how he started, what kind he uses, what purpose they serve. His reflections on note taking and the habit of recording thoughts regularly on paper stuck with me, not just as an insight into his creative process, but as a motivation to reflect on my own relationship with my sketchbooks. I have…
When I first set foot on my path as an information designer, I never thought the field would explode in popularity as it has today. Where there was once a drought of information and resources on the subject, there is now a flood of content overtaking the landscape of information design. But this surge of interest has come at a price. As I wrote back in June of 2010, information design — broadly…
Solving global challenges is on many people’s minds these days. Businesses of all sizes have become much more proactive in rethinking their values, culture, services, products, and operations to serve the greater good while staying profitable. But a select few companies are leading the way with bold ventures in the social and global spheres. IBM is among these titans of corporate social…
This is unofficially the age of information design. Visualization is in vogue. Information is suddenly beautiful. Data is free flowing, ready to be poured, molded, sculpted, and remixed at will. Displays of facts and figures are everywhere, from newspapers to magazines, websites to television, public spaces to the palm of one’s hand. But amid this frenzy of info-obsession, a fundamental…
Humanity’s search for knowledge, in its many forms, has always fascinated me. Spanning geographies, cultures, faiths, and generations, the enduring pursuit of truth and insight into the diverse realms of human experience has yielded some of the greatest works of science and art — from the sequencing of the human genome to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. Each school of thought or…