This is Information Design

Information design is the process of turning data into useful information, and presenting it in a designerly appropriate way that communicates its basic meaning to a targeted audience. Its forms and varieties come in a broad spectrum, partially due to the design factor that intergrates it into so many different fields and subjects. My own understanding of information design would be summed up in, and sadly at the moment limited to, Röyksopp's "Remind Me" music video.

When asked "what is information design?", my mind goes back to Info Design 101 where it could be very generally summed up signage, way fnding and conveying statistics. (I suppose I would be one of the kind of designers whose “eyes glazed over or [they] broke out in cold sweat” if Terry Irwin had been my interviewer.) The need for great patience and attention to detail aside, if you stripped and information designer down to his or her core, you will find that the most basic and possibley the most important trait is the simple, innate desire to help people.

This doesn’t generally mean that other designers don’t care for the people that their work services – it just means that not everyone has what it takes to be a good information designer.

They are indeed an interesting breed of visual communicator. Most designers, in any field, generally work to a brief, a set of guidelines in which they can let themselves flourish. This of course does not exclude information designers – they just take the extent, the complexity of organization and sorting, to a whole different level.


To give the gist of information design, here are a few quick examples of the different forms it can take on.

1. Royksopp's "Remind Me" music video - information graphics.
This music clip shows a great range of different information charts, graphics, and systems. Despite its fast pace, viewers such as myself can still easily concieve the kind of information that is being portrayed by the visuals.




2. University of Sydney Campus - signage.
These are the designs for the front signage at the University of Sydney. Placed towards the entry of the University gates, the signs are designed for catching ones attention from afar, and optimising readability and legibility at a distance. The weight of the black acts as a visual anchor against the busy city background, using the university's greenery to elevate the text, regardless of time of day, weather, lighting, and other possible visual inconveniences.





3. Seeker - interactive and information design.
Designed by Josephine Starr and Leon Cmielewski (UWS's very own Information Design lecturer),

The Seeker installation uses three large projections to explore migration, territorial boundaries, conflict commodities and human displacement.

The interactive touch-screen attribute lets users engage with the installation and map out the migrations throughout their family tree. Seeker fuses interaction design with information design to produce unique visual maps to convey the nature of migration to each indivisual user.