How Did Information Design Begin?

As a defined area of study, Information Design is a relatively recent development. Its root principles stem from disciplines such as graphic design, information architecture, and usability. Professionals from these diverse, but related, fields are the pioneers of current Information Design, such as the innovative print designer, Ladislay Sutnar. His publications and department-store catalogs in the 1950s used design to direct "the eye in an orderly procession across their pages to help readers absorb the vast quantities of information within," (Senechal, 1997). This was an innovative idea for its time. Since the 1950s many prominent designers have made important contributions to Information Design: Massimo Vignelli's architectural informational approach to design; Clement Mok's innovations in information architecture and user interface design; Richard Saul Wurman's city Access guides and Smart Yellow Pages; and Erik Spiekermann for typography and systems design. (Senechal, 1997). Another important innovator in the realm of Information Design is Edward Tufte, a Professor Emeritus at Yale University where he taught statistical evidence, information design and interface design. Tufte is considered a leading expert on the visual presentation of information, and has written several books including The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information and Visual Explanations, in which he provides research and compelling visual examples of effective data visualization. (Kjeldsen, 2006).

Many of the designers influential in the popularization of Information Design began in the area of print design. Information Design, as a discipline, is most often associated with computer technologies developed in the last 20 years. However, the underlying principles of Information Design are fundamental to communications systems that have existed throughout history. This may seem like a broad claim, and perhaps it is, but to understand the basic principles of Information Design, it is helpful to examine the basic structures of language formation, and the myriad forms that communication systems of all types can assume. The context in which the message is created and transmitted may affect the recipient's perception and understanding of the message, but ultimately the message and the medium are separate. This was not the view held by the author, Marshall McLuhan, in his many books and articles. In McLuhan's view the "medium is the message" because it is the "medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action." (McLuhan, Understanding Media 1964, 1994). McLuhan claimed that "…societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication." (McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage 1967, 2005). In contrast to McLuhan's ideas, Ellen Lupton in her article The Birth of the User states "today's merging technologies are again reaffirming [that the] medium is not always the message" as information and a digital experience may be accessed in a variety of formats, such as a "video screen, a desktop computer, a game console, and cell phone." (Lupton, 2005). Each of these modes presents the same information in a slightly different way, and with different goals.

We are surrounded by information continually - so much that we take most of it for granted. However, this information in its varied forms is pivotal to understanding the world in which we live. Perhaps the best way to understand Information Design is to examine the evolution of communication systems throughout history.