Annotations and conversations

My favorite part is when the coffee making and drinking happens!

music by The Admirals

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I could not pick between the two songs, so here is another version
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music by Arcade fire

I was helping transfer books from boxes to shelves two weeks ago and came across Nigel Holmes’ Pictorial Map book. Flipped through the pages, quickly scanning for interesting material for class. Stopped. Went back a few pages. Screamed when I saw a map of Mauritius–my island—in NIGEL HOLMES’ book!!! Read the caption. Thought “Hold on, is this for real?” Yes, it was. Here is the map. Now, this looks dated but for once, I will just enjoy the fact that my island was showcased in a design book and not analyze some of the deficiencies of the map. 🙂

Photo Credit: Conrad Taylor

(Presenters > photo 1:  Robert Harland, Paul Stiff, Colette Jeffrey, Jonathan Rez, Sunita Yeomans, Eric Kinde)

(Presenters > photo 2: Yateendra Joshi, Max Gadney, David Farbey, Carla Galvão Spinillo, Me)

I was extremely pleased with the quality of presentation and discourse at the IDC2009.

I have always had an issue with conferences holding concurrent presentation sessions. I can never go to all the ones I am interested in and get stuck listening to the ones that are not relevant to my interests. Sounds shallow, I know. I should open up to other areas of research interest. Actually, no. I should not. I should focus on my own. The other presentations could be valuable, to others I am sure. It only becomes valuable to me if I can apply it to my interest. Oh and, I despise presentations that showcase students’ work without explaining how these projects relate to the conference theme. It is one thing to show me your students’ work and yet another to tell me how it relates to the larger system that is academia. And, I also prefer it when presenters stay true to their abstracts. The articulate word crafter can put together a wonderfully sounding abstract that he/she does not follow through on in the actual presentation.

Back to the IDC2009.

The structure was well thought out.

Everyone gathered in the lecture room and all the presentations were given in that same room.

Presentations addressed both the visual and the technical writing part of Information Design.

Actually, technical writing, I found out, can be visual as well. Technical writing can be concrete. If you can see what you read, it is concrete.

Jonathan Rez gave an enlightening overview of wayfinding/thingfinding/wayshowing/thingshowing. I wish he had time to go deeper into the subject. He definitely had me thinking and thinking and I’m still thinking.

Paul Stiff addressed designing for action. He talked about print production versus print reception.

Rob Waller talked about his good guidance wish list: memorable, action-oriented, flexible, holistic, evidence-based, intuitive, user-centered, realistic, teaching through showing.

Max Gadney talked about patterns and trends in news graphics. He questioned systems versus objects. He showed and talked about information graphics on the printed page, online and in videos. BIOMIMICRY: innovation inspired by nature.

Borries Schwesinger’s presentation was about forms as interaction tools. His talk, however, displayed and explained the path it takes one to get to forms online. While interesting, I was dying to hear more about the form design itself more. How are forms interaction tools?

I do not have notes on the other presentations either because I was too busy thinking or I was in pain from pinching my nerves from a 10 hour flight and could not look down at my notepad.

The panel discussion was extremely interactive and intelligent. The conversation revolved around interaction design, information design, user-experience and (hehe) academia!

I will post a video of the panel discussion after I edit it.

Students use color in different amounts to control space and mood

Students think of letters as part of an alphabet system—they look at modulations, emotions, contrast, repetition—and try to create relationships among all their letter forms.