"Information has always been designed." - Brenda Dervin.
This was nice reading about how design can be put to use to meet the practical needs for the audience and make every day living better for people. I'm a practical girl - I'd so much rather design for substance over style. The endless creation and marketing of products is probably the least appealing part of design for me.
The quote above made me think about the crossroads between design and psychology. I'm not sure I agree with Brenda Dervin - it seems to me like our brains are pretty good at sorting though information in the environment subconsciously and making intuitive decisions. And it seems like a lot of designers know this and exploit it - why do food and sex show up in so many advertisements for products not related to food and sex?
So my question is, do you think that all information has to be spelled out, or can design just set the stage for the viewer's intuitive reasoning to take over? Does it depend on content?
3 comments:
I think it completely depends on the intended audience. As much as we as designers hope that viewers will be thrown into deep thought by our designs, I'll bet it happens rarely. We have a responsibility to make things clear and direct. But we can live for the jobs and clients where rule breaking and higher level thinking is encouraged.
I think that sometimes the more simple a piece is (well simple looking, but lots of conceptual thinking put in by the designer) the better. I think the whole goal of info graphics is so that the viewer learns about something new or rethinks something they know, but only in a different light. Of course this probably changes from situation to situation, as understanding complex formulas in pharmacy or chemical reactions in organic chem may be need a background understanding, but the info graphic can stand as a building block, or a stepping stone for more understanding.
don't forget about context.
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