"Design not with forms but with forces." -- Lawrence Halprin
This book is the story of an exciting new profession, information design, as told by today's leading information designers.
"Information design" is defined as the systematic organization of information to communicate meaning, alter individual or collective behavior, facilitate learning, and in general render the world and ourselves more understandable.
Information Design had its origins in the 1994 Seattle gathering of the Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD). The SEGD is the professional society for those who practice spatial design, design in three dimensions. At this meeting, the participants asked and attempted to answer three questions:
Is there a discreet process that can be characterized as information design?
Can a theory of information design help systematize this process?
How can this theory best be reflected in practice? And by whom?
Later, other authors, among them leading designers in the new technologies of communication, joined the effort. Together with the SEGD presenters, they spanned the gamut from 2D design on paper to interactive multidimensional design online, and every medium in-between.
The result is a challenging and provocative portrait of a profession in evolution and a close examination of its meaning for our lives in an increasingly rich information-rich environment. The authors, besides sharing their philosophy of design, describe their day-to-day activities as information designers. This books is both intellectually far-reaching and eminently practical.
Information Design is in the final stages of editing. A hard-copy version will be published by the MIT Press in early 1997.
Information Design will appeal to every professional and student engaged in the design of information for commerce, education, entertainment, and self-expression. It is a project of Worldesign Inc., a Seattle-based information design studio working with new media and meanings.
For more information, contact Dr. Robert Jacobson