Information Design

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hannahkc:

alboardman: London Animated

TypeJunkie

[lugdlondonjb]

Display

Who am I? was largely driven by the visitor component. The videos and interaction all needed the human component to work, the only part that did not were the large glass rectangles, which were highly reflective, meant to point out that you are a central part of the exhibit. It is impossible to experience this exhibit without considering yourself at length while doing so, and each part reflects that. 

The Hall of Human Life was an organized machine. Less focused on self-reflection, it’s displays were white and easter-colored, color coding each topic. 

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Organization 

The Hall of Human life was organized according to topic. Each topic was colorized and compartmentalized inside one of three rooms of the exhibit. The topics were a spectrum, leading from mental health, through physical appearance, general health, physical abilities, and then a synthesis of all topics. All focused on how you, the viewer, are affected. 

Who am I? was organized by how the viewer interacts with the material. On either side of the exhibit were larger interactive projections, around the perimeter within the projections were computers that played from a large library of related videos that the viewer selects. Within the computers were large silver pods, that all had screens within them, these screen took information from the viewer and displayed it back to them related to generalizations of the population. Within that were large clear glass rectangles, containing installations and related information. In the center of the exhibit was a large table-looking device with circular screens that took your information and then put it on the largest projection screen along with a figure of yourself comprised of dots. 

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Interactive

Both London and Boston science museums has aspects of interacting with the information. In Boston the information was taken and applied to the person in the exhibit via a wrist band unique to each visitor and their information. The wristbands collected information about the physical and mental state of each person, from family dynamics to the arch of their foot. Some activities were physical while others were a series of questions.  

In London, the information was more generalized, but through computers each visitor participated in various tasks about their human experience, from testing the pitch of voice to questions of morality. Some interaction was through watching videos, others was through participating in actives. 

Shown here is the entry way to the exhibit ‘Who am I?’ in London and the scanning of the wristband in Boston. 

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I was doing my thing on the internet watching science videos but then THIS ONE IS TOTALLY RELEVANT TO MY PROJECT. I didn't expect it at all. 

Here we see Emily Graslie talking with Bob Belote talking about how he basically engineers interactive museum exhibits for the Chicago Field Museum. Unfortunately I can't go there and see the exhibit in question. It really makes me wonder, what kind of person hold this position in other museums? Would this position benefit from having a designer working closely with them? I honestly don't know. How does this position operate in the London Science museum? I for one could not make my own computers to work with things. I think this raises some interesting questions. 

[lugdlondonjb]

The transport museum presented all the aspects of museum design I had been exploring. It had many different forms of physical interaction with the information, the use of projection, and dynamic placement of type within the space. 

I found the poster designs, while not my focus, particularly interesting for the pop culture references and the funny wording. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to understand what pretending to be a child meant. 

The space here was one of the most well activated spaces in a museum. Information was hidden, up down, at eye level, behind and around objects. 

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This exhibit was just as much an experience as it was an art show. It was about fashion, sure, but I think the focus was more on the making than anything else, especially the making of the making. The process of process seemed to occupy most of the space. I loved it. 

Every room in the exhibit captured the feel of a room that had or does really exist. Every sign for every room attempted to capture the feel of that room, within the bounds of keeping the same as the other signs. 'the design studio' sign sits on a sea of photos, 'the collections' actually reflects the room it is refereeing to when viewed the right way. 'collaborations' shows a collaboration of three frames, and 'paul's office' shows the quirkiness of the room by sitting in the wedge. 

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The Typography exhibit was enthralling. I found the typeface he selected for the posters to be so charming. It's called 'JK' and it was designed by a student, he didn't say the name though. His reason for doing so was because the typeface then did not match a typeface in the exhibit, he didn't have to pick a favorite or add unintentional emphasis on any certain part of the exhibit. I was really satisfied with his answer. 

This exhibit really got me to look at design as a tool. Design is the tool for understanding information. The better crafted and more considered the tool is, the better job it is going to do. Ie, the better the reader will understand what information is being conveyed. I think in all my work I would like to start applying this concept. 

[lugdlondonjb]

Vaughan Oliver

Oliver was extremely interesting! 

I'm really going to start using his work as inspiration for my own. I have been working a lot with pictures more often and I think sometimes my type work can drown out the elements of the picture. His work will defiantly inspire me as I aspire to balance it all. 

[lugdlondonjb]

Looking back to my roots in the trade always get me. Everything I know about the history of Design started with understanding the basic concepts of Offset Lithography and the history of that. I was itching to print something out on it. Or to glue up the carbon pages that were waiting in the delivery. 

It's an awesome feeling to come back to the press after a few years and still be able to speak the language and identify the parts of the machine. I've also never seen a Heidelberg of this era in the flesh! The last Heidelberg I saw was a web fed thing being used to attached a decal onto colored paper!

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This exhibit was so much smaller than the exhibit in Boston. Though, the similarities in execution where astounding. I have no doubt the designer for the Boston bit had seen the London exhibit. The interactivity for the entry way is almost exactly like an interactive piece to learn about intestines in Boston. There was a similar projector at the back of the exhibit, and I think it was suppose to do something more than reel through different slides, but it wasn't interactive. 

There were many computer stations all inside of almost bean-shaped objects, they were single person spaces and there were some design specifically at children's height and with children in mind. 

All through the exhibit there were also computer stations (not pictured) where it had the same options at every station, but there were so many it could not all be interacted with in one sitting, or even one visit, I really enjoyed getting information that way. 

The exhibit was almost entirely the thin standing glass boxes, each with there own set up inside them, with there own reading paths and ideas. but none of them felt unconnected from the design despite the many apparent differences in overall content and information. That was very enjoyable. I also felt the reading path could be sculpted by the reader without much need to make corrections for feeing 'out of order.' 

[lugdlondonjb]

The V&A was pretty amazing. While I was there I became quickly overwhelmed with how much I was seeing and my feet seriously hurt. I think I would have made better decisions on what to look at if my feet hadn't hurt so much. Seeing things I learned in History of Modern Design blew my mind. That Chair????!!!! That Art Nouveau chair???????? I want to be able to put my ass in that every day of my life. I can only imagine the Klemscott house. 

As for the design of the displays, every permanent piece felt connected. The color code was obvious and flowed, clearly marking each exhibit. There was even one time, where the dates were reflected on the floor at the entrance to a room. Wish I had taken a picture of that. 

Also, in the theater rooms, they had a Shakespeare display set up, and that was a gem if I've ever seen one. The typography at work there was unbelievable, in my free time I want to go back, I really really do. Shakespeare is amazing as it is, and the info graph on the wall was a work of art. 

[lugdlondonjb]

Day 2 reflection

So I'm really super enjoying London. It feels a lot like home and it feels a lot like a new and exciting place. The similarities seem enough sometimes to  blend the veil between the realities of both places. 

I almost had a row with the vending machine this morning during class. I was a bit hungrier than I thought I would be when I finished last night's fish. Nothing at all is priced in the machine. i spent a good amount of time just understanding that I have to type in the snack's number and it will tell me a price. Why. I don't know. Seems like a hassle. Should compare more vending machines.

When we came out of the Tube and walked in the subway, that was weird and amazing for me. I'm simply the best when it comes to direction. I just know which way I'm facing. I'm right most of the time. Except when I'm underground. I have a little bit of a sense, I think we were walking Southeast, but I just have no way of knowing.

I left the V&A early to get to the Science Museum. It was so much more than I thought it would be. It was grand and reminded me less of the Boston Museum of Science and more of the Smithsonian. Especially the plane on the ceiling. 

I went into an exhibit about the human mind, I really wanted to make scientific connections with the physiology class I'm taking, it ended up being less so about the activities of the brain in a scientific and more about historical discoveries in the way of brain chemistry. Interesting, but a bit disappointing conceptually.  

Selfridges was very interesting, in my mind, before we got there I was relating their subject matter to Ikea, but I've never been to or seen Ikea. As we walked to the entrance, me and Lexi actually stopped to look at the design and thought it was really neat, we didn't, or at least I didn't, notice that it was Selfridges. We went back and walked around the whole store and the way they used materials was astounding, I don't even know what half of it was, but in some cases it was forced perspective so I saw a whole skate park in the display, or the materials were abstractions of what there intentions were. It proved to be very interesting, but at the end of the day, I found the display case design more compelling and interesting to look at, at the store on Piccadilly street (the one where people would go before they planned to go on Safari; the place that provided food for the queen?) 

I also have been mapping out our walking on the map they gave us each night. 

[lugdlondonjb]

A response to Eric Gill’s Essay on Typography

  Jackie Barnes

I found this essay difficult to start; the beginning was very dry and uninteresting. The section on Lettering began to suck me into the essay. The examples and history piqued my interest. I found the most interesting fact to be the history of the lowercase letter, as the written letter got lazier and lazier, the letterform changed into what we know today. Gill also felt that making the correct letter form has as much to do with tuition as to do with knowledge of letterforms, and I really think that is true.

            For much of the essay Gill seems to discuss the workings of the process of design and printing as well as the integrity of the position. There is a lot of honor in selecting the materials and using them correctly. He talked about the selection of paper and how it is something intuitive in a designer and I really believe that is true. Even today, interaction with the printer has been reduced to a minimum and in most cases, where jobs are done on printers that don’t need a press operator, I still choose the higher grade paper. For a designer, aesthetic of a product is just as important as the function. I feel in many ways this makes us a combination of an engineer and an artist, and the combination of these two trades come from our history, where pressmen were more engineer, and the people doing the designing were more artists.

            I think in many ways, Gill’s thinking was British design thinking of his time. Print in craftsmanship and really living up to the honor of their work. This is well after the arts and crafts movement, but I feel he is inspired by it, even if he wasn’t primarily a printer, and history will remember him as a type designer, printing was and is a crafter, and it is an art.

            British culture today really values the well designed and well considered. Of course, I have yet to get there, but from this, it is obvious; more time is spent concerned with the making of something that Americans would consider adding to a process. Even selecting the correct serifs in a typeface is a meticulous and exact process. Gill considers every angle of the design process, from the exact placement of type to the precise printing process it will go through, including the way it will be punch cut, either by hand or machine would ultimately make a very small difference in the design, but a difference is still there, he considers it all.  

            I find this dedication very interesting and I do with it would be more of a common norm in America. I feel we are more obsessed in the outcome to consider the smaller, very important details of process. From this essay I have gained a much bigger sense of the importance of process and a better appreciation for the exactitude of its execution. 

[lugdlondonjb]

The Eddy Baker Library was quite extraordinary. It had four parts, and felt as though it had been erected all yesterday. The most interesting part of the museum was unphotographical. it was a three story tall globe that you could physically walk inside of, the whole world faces into you, it's called the Mapparium. It was constructed in 1931 and reflects the world at that time. 

The best room was the Hall of Ideas. Projectors lined the ceiling, and they would project words onto the floor, the walls, and into the fountain in the center of the room. The words moved around in their environment as well, as though they know what surface they were on, they morphed in and out legibility, it made a remarkable learning experience and environment. 

There was a museum aspect and just as the Hall of Ideas activated the space, so did the museum, cutting a hole in the glass to double as a doorway, and placing words in unlikely, but perfectly readable places. 

The last aspect of the museum is the first place seen when you walk in. Piled high is a bunch of Mary Baker Eddy's trunks that she would use to move with, surrounding them are plaques explaining her life endeavors. 

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I was doing some snooping around on the internet and I came across these nicely designed pieces of information from NorthEastern University's MFA Graduate program. This type of design is what I was originally hoping to find in my trip to the Science Museum last week. Well crafted displays for comparing information. 

got the images from here

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Please note - my main blog is NOT this blog, it's impeccablysupernaturalglowcloud, that is the blog that will follow you. It has absolutely nothing to do with design or London. I would like if you avoided clicking it. Thank you.