Tag: Sheila Pontis

• Understanding is everything

  There are tonnes of problems caused by misunderstandings from being lost in the street, arriving to inefficient solutions, to having communication problems. Understanding seems to be the most important stage of a (design) process, but what does understanding mean? How we can be sure that something is completely understood by others? In order to find…

  February 22, 2011

• A bigger picture of information design

  Following up recent discussions about what information design is and how it can be defined, I decided to write a little contribution trying to tackle information design from: its definition (history, objective, boundaries?), its theory (education = foundation levels, research?) and its practice (work = clients). Of course, I know what information designers do, or…

  February 10, 2011

• Understanding-centred design process

  The Outcome-centred design process has its emphasis in the development of a design outcome. Currently designers are increasing the amount of time and money invested in research and analysis to solve design problems, as can be seen in new born design disciplines such as Service Design and Social Design, however often designers still tend to…

  February 4, 2011

• Organising Flight Information

  This Christmas I went to Toronto, Canada for the first time. What really got my attention was the way flight information was organised in the Toronto airport screens. Flight information refers to flight schedule times, flight status, flight company names/numbers, flight terminals and flight origin/destination cities. I have taken for granted that flight information was…

  January 5, 2011

• The rose diagram

  

  ”˜The beauty of diagrams’ at BBC Four is a series of 6 programmes that analyse key diagrams. Particularly, programme 3 explains the history of  ”˜The rose diagram’. This diagram was created in 1858 for the nurse Florence Nightingale to show the poor sanitary conditions of hospitals under which the British army was exposed during the…

  December 10, 2010

• Adopt a design method!

  I have briefly mentioned the importance of design methods for design practice and the current lack of design methodologists in a previous post. Now, I will go further explaining why design methods are essential for the design discipline more than ever. Gregory (1966), Jones (1992), Conley (2004) and Cross (2001, 2007), among others, have pointed…

  December 6, 2010

• Types and approaches of (Design) research

  Now the term practice-led has become a common term for me, but not before I started my PhD research I realised that there were different types of art and design research. Up to that time, I thought that all investigations had to be ”˜practice’ as their aim was to develop ”˜something’. I had in mind…

  November 5, 2010

• 1st CIDAG

  Last week I was in Lisbon, Portugal, attending the 1st International Conference on Design and Graphic Printing (CIDAG). In addition to graphic printing other areas of design, such as corporate design and information design were discussed. I have been invited to do the opening keynote lecture for the information design area after Joan Costa, who…

  November 1, 2010

• broken graphics?

  Many times the diagrammatic representation about the Napoleon’s invasion of Russia has been defined as the best graphic ever made. Tufte’s books explore, analyse and develop design principles based on this diagram. I have presented this diagrammatic representation in more than one lecture, article and post to exemplify the concept of ”˜levels of information’, ”˜viewing…

  October 18, 2010

• Information Design Basics and Essentials

  Although my research is mostly centered on information design projects’ content and not on their aesthetic characteristics, I think it is important to highlight that the visual characteristics and language of these projects also require deep analysis and work to reach effective results. As part of my practice review, I have encountered with several cases…

  September 23, 2010

• Underground Maps Unravelled

  Last week I visited Underground Maps Unravelled, an exhibition entirely devoted to underground diagrammatic maps, and particularly presenting an in-depth analysis of the London Underground Diagram (LUD). Dr. Maxwell Roberts explores information design alternatives of the very first LUD created by Henry Beck in 1933. In addition to a historic evolution of the LUD, Roberts…

  September 19, 2010

• my bubble

  Often people ask me: what does a PhD student? What have you been working on for the last years? I used to respond that doing a PhD is to read, learn and research a lot about something tiny and specific, within a particular field and subject. Last week, a friend sent me a short, but…

  August 26, 2010