Information design is the practice of presenting information, in a way which will be efficient and effectively understood by the public. As there can be alot of information to share, keeping it simple is better for your audience to digest that information easily. The more inviting it looks the better, as people would want to read about it so design is very important when it comes to promoting information. The use of colour, typography, structure and layout are all essential parts of successfully creating information design. Attraction leads to invitation, which then leads to the public reading what you have got to say and that is a must, as that is the main aim of designing information.
Information design can be any form of communication which has been designed to simply inform. The info-graphic above of a Carbon Footprint has been designed by Stanford Kay. The footprint is composed of various different sized circles all making up to form into a shape of one big foot. The circles describe how big the carbon emissions of each nation are and all are colour coded according to each different region. I personally thought this was a very creative way of putting the whole concept together as its very informative and eye-catching at the same time.
I think the black background was a really good colour to use ,as all the colours on top stand out much more and attract your viewers. Although it looks abit over-crowed with all that information, I thought it was still a very easy piece of visual communication to understand because it's all pretty much self-explanatory with the colour codes and colour key chart on the side. Stanford has said that he will be designing another version which will be the final version to this footprint design and i'm looking forward to see how that will turn out.
T Y P O G R A P H Y. .
Typography is another vital element of information design. One designer which came to mind when thinking of typography is the very well known Neville Brody. Brody is known for creating his own typefaces and they all have his own sense of unique style to them. I cannot stress how important the legibility of a typeface is, if it cannot be read why do use it? By having a bold, clear cut font it makes it 10 times more easier for your audience to read what you're saying than to use a complicated font; which may impact the way your audience reads that particular message.
I believe all letters/ words must relate to the theme of your product and create an emotion or feeling within the audience according to the type of product you are promoting. Steve Jobs knew the power of typography and used it to differentiate his Mac from his competitors. He knew people that were looking for a simple way to communicate and express their feelings. Therefore, Steve Jobs asked Susan Kare to design a bunch of fonts (Geneva, Monaco, San Francisco) that were legible on the computer as well as in a printed version.
Overall from this lecture, I gathered an insight to information design and what it's associated areas. The research will now be stuck with me for future reference and whenever I do get to do some of my own information designs, I will be able to use my existing knowledge to create something full of creativity and effectively use these skills to form some great designs!
S I M P L E
FUN
MEMORABLE
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