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Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

Is data visualisation getting a bad name?

I was pleased to see graphic design in the news this week, for reasons other than the usual public and tabloid outrage over massive fees for ‘just a logo’. Data visualisation was the subject of a small report and studio discussion on BBC2’s Newsnight show, featuring ‘infographic’ advocate David McCandless, and design heavyweight Neville Brody duking it out.

The general argument on the part of McCandless is that we are saturated with data these days, and that his work and that of others is exploring new ways of presenting it, in order to give abstract subjects some context or relevance. That such projects can also be beautiful is a serendipitous by-product of this exercise.

Brody took the opposing view, largely consistent with my own, that superfluous artistry serves to cloud the very facts the graphics are trying to represent, and that this is potentially dangerous.

Ganging up on the new guy

The studio debate felt fairly one-sided to me – McCandless is clearly less experienced in discussing design at a deep level than Brody, and presenter Kirsty Wark seemed to treat McCandless as some kind of nefarious, truth-concealing politician, rather than the jobbing designer/author that he is. You could see Brody trying to get some decent responses from McCandless, but none were really forthcoming, which is a shame, as he had some valid points, which just weren’t asserted hard enough.

What I think McCandless was trying to say was that with the massive and constant streams of data to which we now have access, their meaning can be lost, and that representing information visually can help people better digest it. Wark suggested that such methods could also be used by political parties, to ‘spin’ stories. Her tone angered me, as it felt as though she had exposed McCandless as having invented a new tool for politicians to hoodwink us with. No Kirsty, you’ve just realised what graphic design is about.

Truth

Graphic design is all about communication, and for the most part, this is to influence people’s behaviour. Whether you’re designing a gas bill, a poster for a concert, a leaflet about diabetes, or a website for a chartered accountant, you’re spinning something. Sure, most designers have a level of integrity in their work, but to suggest that design is about presenting pure facts, with absolutely no subjectivity, is complete rubbish.

The thing is, the need for good data visualisation is probably greater than ever. It’s just that there’s a hell of a lot of rubbish ‘infographics’ out there which makes one think the discipline is a waste of time. Much of what I see definitely clouds the facts therein, drenched as they are in lovely shapes, colours and typefaces which distract, rather than inform. Even the term ‘infographic’ makes it sound like a throwaway, consumable item, to be Tweeted to your friends, along with a link to a blog post entitled ‘67 awesome shopping cart icons’, and then forgotten.

The message

Designers have a responsibility, either to their client, to their client’s audience, or to the information itself, to ensure that a message is communicated, and received. If it’s necessary to influence people’s reactions, for whatever your reasons, then that’s fine; it’s your job to do that. If you’re just playing the narcissist on your Macbook Pro, under the auspices of being a force for truth, then you’re not a designer.

As is often the case, Paul Rand said it best: ‘When form predominates, meaning is blunted. But when content predominates, interest lags.’ It is the job of the designer to find this balance, if information, and its meaning, is to be understood.

To finish, here’s a great pastiche infographic, which sums up my concerns very nicely. Thanks to Phil Gyford for the permission to use it.

Phil Gyford's infographic

Tags: data, Design, Information Design, Journalism, politics
Posted in Ideas | 1 Comment »

Can a brand have as many voices as customers?

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Could technology drive a bespoke brand experience? I touched on this notion during my talk at Future of Web Design, but didn’t have the time to explore it further. There seems to be a shift towards very specific personalisation when it comes to our experience of many products and services. Spotify playlists, iGoogle, Ensembli, etc. all provide a framework for us to experience and consume things hand-picked by ourselves. It’s something we’re getting very used to. Indeed, there was a lot of grumbling when Twitter introduced its new ‘retweet’ feature, as people were all-of-a-sudden seeing comments in their news feed from users they hadn’t specifically chosen to view. So how could a brand possibly support this continued drive towards personalisation, while retaining some semblance of identity itself?

Your M&S isn't really 'yours'. It's still 'theirs'.

Consistently inconsistent

Just because a brand is a unique entity does not mean it can’t shift its personality to suit whomever it may be addressing. We all have distinct personalities, but we all alter our behaviour depending on to whom we are talking. Personally, I talk and act slightly differently depending on whether I’m with friends, business clients, or my children. Despite my changing behaviour, all these people recognise me as ‘Dean’. By the same token, I always know I’m ‘me’. Could a brand do this?

Of course, many brands have employed differing voices to communicate with different sections of their audience, but it’s still a relatively blanket approach, based on a combination of research and best guesses. Yet no research, however specific, could hope to facilitate communication on an individual level. Technology could facilitate this.

What technology?

There is a project that’s been developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called Personas which aggregates your online activity, to create a visual represenation of your time on the Web. You are presented with a graph, which categorises the subjects you have spent time being involved with. It’s an interesting little project, but it got me thinking: could we not also track and analyse the language people use online?

Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums, comments… regular web users have a huge wealth of thoughts and opinions in the public domain. If we had the technology, we could see what people think on myriad subjects, and what language they use to express themselves. Could a brand not harness this information and use it to deliver the ultimate personalised experience, one which not only provides the content, products and services a customer is interested in, but delivers it in a voice specific to them?

While it can take years for an audience to develop a sense of trust in a brand, why can’t a brand harness a voice each customer already trusts – their own?

How could it work?

Let’s look at Amazon.com as a possible case study. For years, Amazon has utilised a customer’s browsing and purchasing habits, as well as those of others, to deliver a powerful recommendation service – one which continues to impress me. However, look and feel of the site aside, there’s no real personality to accompany this, and it feels something of a missed opportunity.

What if Amazon could not only access a customer’s activity on its own site, but that person’s entire online activity? It would have a much deeper understanding of someone’s likes, dislikes, motivations, not to mention the kind of language they use. If a user was comfortable with colloquialisms, text speak, longer words, even bad language, Amazon could recognise this and alter its voice to suit, while still providing the level of service people associate with the brand.

Examples of how Amazon could shift its personality

Everyone would have a unique experience of, and relationship with Amazon, and Amazon’s brand would be strengthened by this. Yet through its other brand touchpoints (service, visual communication, etc.) it would assert a distinct brand personality. As with myself and how people see me, everyone would have a distinct view of Amazon, yet it would still be instantly and consistently recognised.

Technology driving brand development

This kind of ultra-personalised experience would only be possible with emerging technology, that not only recognises and matches words, data and so on, but can also understand meaning, context and subtlety. This is what is so interesting and exciting right now. Technology isn’t just offering new touchpoints for customer contact. It is allowing brands to do things they’ve never done before. Those brands which can recognise and exploit such possibilities stand to make massive progress in the coming years.

Tags: branding, data, technology, User Experience
Posted in Ideas | 2 Comments »

Perfection is hard to love

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Is it the imperfections we see in things which endear us to them?

My very first post on this blog was on the notion of ‘perfection’ in design, and how if you look at certain, often mundane things objectively, it is easy to see that they do their job perfectly. There is nothing one could add or remove from its design to make it do its job any better.

However, upon thinking about it further, I think this is also what stops things that fall into this category reaching greater awareness through emotional attachment. People don’t ‘love’ door handles; they just notice when they’re a bit stiff, or positioned too high or too low.

Good design doesn’t have to be invisible

It’s often said that ‘good design is invisible’. This isn’t necessarily true, as it is often the small, needless details which heighten one’s experience of something. Remember when CD players in the early ’90s said ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’ on their LCDs when you turned them on and off? I loved that. Or the tactile clicking noise when you use an ipod’s scroll wheel? Unnecessary, yet delightful.

It is when design takes a step away from just doing its job, and begins engaging us on a sensory or emotional level, that things become less ‘perfect’ and universally accepted, but also heightens the chance of standing out and being loved by some.

It all depends on how far the creator goes. Obviously the more one develops a design in a certain direction, the greater chance it will appeal more to a certain group of people, and less so others.

Shadow of the Colossus (©Sony Computer Entertainment)

Look at the video game Shadow of the Colossus. It’s a unique game, with an odd, lonely atmosphere like no other I’ve played. It encourages a distinct level of emotional involvement in the player, both in their relationship with the in-game character’s horse (that sounds a lot weirder than it actually is!), and also in the guilt the player feels in defeating the huge (stunningly designed) beasts you have been charged to kill. It’s just this kind of atmosphere, and conflicting feelings the game invokes, that has driven many to proclaim it a masterpiece (myself included), while at the same time drawing derision from those who don’t wish to experience these things when they play games. Of course, the game could have been made more immediate, and the beasts in the game could have been made more clearly ‘evil’, but that would have eliminated just the elements that have made it so revered in some circles.

London 2012 logo

From a branding point of view, Wolff-Olins’ London 2012 Olympics brand identity has been highly criticised — by both the mainstream press and by many people from within the design industry. I saw a talk given by Neville Brody not long after it was unveiled, and he had quite a rant about it! For me, the jury is currently still out on whether the branding succeeds, and I don’t think we’ll really find out until after the closing ceremony.

I know the branding doesn’t appeal to me personally, but then perhaps Wolff-Olins was taking it in a different direction — one that will appeal more to young people, and encourage them to take up sport, and become more aware of the importance of global competition. But perhaps something like the Olympic Games shouldn’t be so narrow in its scope. It is, after all, intended to unify people from across the world; not just to inspire the UK’s disaffected youth. Would a more universally acceptable design solution be remembered in years to come? Does it need to be? Considering the reactions it has garnered so far, it’s safe to say that this design isn’t ‘perfect’ either, but it’s getting a lot of press, and I’m sure some people really will grow to love the identity. Indeed, I’m quite partial to the recently unveiled pictograms, even though I don’t care for the main logo, or the typography employed.

Take a chance

Of course, ensuring your creation appeals to a specific group of people is one of the chief aims of many design projects. Engendering deep emotional involvement in the end user is probably something that cannot be truly gauged until after it is in use, but taking that extra step could mark the difference between a successful, yet unremarkable piece of work, and a flawed, but loved one. Whether that is right for your project, or your client, is of course a different matter altogether.

Tags: branding, Design, games, Perfection
Posted in Ideas | No Comments »

We are the virtual preservation society…

Monday, September 7th, 2009

Should we try and preserve web sites as part of our cultural history, or should they be left to rot, like a ruined building?

Thoughts on this subject have been blowing around my head recently, mainly because of two things.

The first was my recent and fascinating tour around the Temple Works site in Leeds. I was lucky enough to be able to see this amazing building ahead of its refurbishment and transformation into a cutting-edge cultural and co-working space in Holbeck. Its unique Egyptian-themed facade hides a varied history. It’s a groundbreaking building, both in terms of its engineering and the respect with which its employees were treated, and I’m delighted that it’s getting the attention it sorely needs to preserve and renew it.

Facade of Temple Works in Leeds

However, the most interesting part of the trip was through the areas which were most recently used by Kays’ Catalogue in the mid-’90s. This part of the building was very ‘Marie Celeste’ in its feel, with much of the paraphernalia of day-to-day working life left behind – plates in the canteen, filing cabinets full of old documents, and so on. The detritus of relatively recent human inhabitance gave it a strange atmosphere - partly ghostly, partly mundane.

Ghostly photo of an old netball team, inside Temple Works

As Temple Works stood on the day of my visit, it was at times creepy, funny and sad. I often think it’s a shame that places like this have to be renovated. Of course, it would be criminal to leave something like this to rot, but by the same token, sweeping away such an atmospheric place is also a shame. As such, I was glad I had the opportunity to see it.

Web site ruins

The second thing which happened recently was my realisation that after The Designers Republic folded, its online shop, thepeoplesbureau.com would also cease to be a going concern. I was always a fan of the site – it was a bold and characterful embodiment of the personality with which tDR carried themselves, and one of the few web sites with sound which didn’t have me lurching for the ‘mute’ button.

All that remains of thepeoplesbureau.com on archive.org

Thepeoplesbureau.com is no longer online, as there is no company to run it. A quick trip to the Wayback Machine (the internet archive project) reveals precious little. The site’s reliance on a product stock database means that there is nothing more than a background graphic remaining. Even searching online reveals no screen grabs – there is barely any evidence that this vibrant and fun site ever existed.

A call-to-action from thepeoplesbureau.com

Unlike buildings, which slowly rot over time, web sites can completely disappear instantly, and without warning. This is a huge shame. Unless designers hand over the contents of their hard drives to the Design Museum, how are we to be able to look back over the development of this medium?

I love looking at things from the past – old books, objects, posters, etc. This all adds to my mental library, and gives me a broader well of inspiration to draw from when I work on my own projects, but how will designers of the future be able to look back on things which aren’t being preserved?

Or am I being too precious here? Part of me wonders if classifying web sites in the same way as we would classify other areas of design is missing the point. Our experience of the internet is hugely reliant on context – where we are, what we are doing and who we are connected to. Would looking at a web site out of context be nothing more than staring at some meaningless images?

Should we then, look upon web sites in the same way as other transient cultural creations, such as theatre performances, rock concerts or art installations? Things which make an impression on people at the time, part of which is the knowledge that the experience will never be repeated? I’m not entirely sure, but I would have loved the opportunity to browse around Thepeoplesbureau, whether it had any stock or not, one more time, before it was virtually demolished.

Tags: abandonment, Architecture, preservation, website
Posted in Ideas | 3 Comments »

Designing and building for the future

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

I have always been a fan of post-war architecture, and its attempts at doing things differently. I admit this is partly due to being a child of the 1970s. I grew up surrounded by these kinds of buildings in Birmingham - many of which are no longer there (most notably Birmingham’s Bull Ring).

However, looking at things objectively, as maligned as a lot of it is, I admire those who pushed it forwards, even though much of it ultimately failed in its goals.

The whole idea was to build a brave new world, and to try and wipe away memories of a Britain ravaged by war and bombings. What better way than to create buildings that looked like nothing that had come before? Concrete allowed for huge structures - towering monuments to the future. New shopping centres and social housing projects were designed to encourage community relationships and revitalise the economy.

Birmingham Central Library, photo by Martin Hartland

Look at Birmingham’s Central Library. I don’t care what Prince Charles thinks of it - there’s a strength and power to its form that puts learning at the centre of the city. I haven’t been inside it since the late ’90s, but it’s equally interesting inside, where you can look down from upper floors to those below. I do hope they’ve changed the yellowy lighting since then, though!

Park Hill in Sheffield, photo by Paolo Margari

The Park Hill development in Sheffield is staggering. Built between 1957 and 1961, it is the largest listed building in Europe. The original concept was to create ’streets in the sky’ - a noble and exciting sentiment indeed! It’s currently undergoing renovation.

Of course, it is easy for me to praise something like Park Hill - I’ve never had to live there. As a project, it inevitably failed, and the council more recently found difficulty finding tenants, due the crime rate and poor state of repair of the building.

Ambition + research

It is my job to ensure that the work I do is fit for its target audience, through research, testing and iterative development. Maybe that was what was lacking from the development of buildings in the ’60s. Perhaps someone might have pointed out that Park Hill could be abused by muggers due to its structure and layout.

However, what fills me with admiration for all of this is how its creators were really striving for something more - to make a better world for its inhabitants, which is something everyone working in the creative industries should be encouraged to do.

A New (Design) World Order?

Right now feels like a good time to think about things like this. America has a new, more liberal president, who espoused to the world the importance of making the world a better place. Miscommunication and misunderstanding are still causing wars, yet the internet allows for unparalleled global communication between people who have never even met. The global economy has put bankers and politicians to shame, but also maybe made many of us realise we really don’t need to replace our year-old iPods just yet.

Will this new-found solemnity arising from the events of the last decade drive new styles and standards in the world of design? Hard to tell right now, but it will be interesting to see where things go over the next five years.

Many thanks to Martin Hartland and Paolo Margari for the use of their photos in this article.

Tags: Architecture, Design, Inspiration
Posted in Ideas, Inspiration | 4 Comments »

A new way of seeing music?

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Having been letting iTunes’ most recent music visualisers caress my eyeballs and synapses recently, I’ve been thinking about how visual representations of music could be taken forward. Sure, Apple’s latest visualisers are absolutely beautiful - graceful, colourful, and very slick. But essentially they still behave much like the visualisers of ten years ago. They still just act as animated wallpaper, regardless of how gorgeous they are.

Screen grab of iTunes' "Jelly" music visualiser

It’s something that really interests me. As music continues to migrate to digital platforms, the visual and tactile aspect of it is lost. Bad enough was the scaling down from gatefold vinyl record sleeves to CD cases (although there are some wonderful CD packaging designs out there), but from CD to digital, we lose nearly everything. Perhaps visualisers which reflected the tone of the music could bring an element of the visual back into music appreciation.

For example, what I would love to see (or even work on) would be real-time music visualisation which had a true link with the music, rather than just pulsing in time with the beats, etc.

Screen grab of the "Star Guitar" Chemical Brothers video, by Michel Gondry

I love Michel Gondry’s video for the Chemical Brothers track Star Guitar. I first saw this from about halfway through, and didn’t realise what was going on, and thought it was just an ironically dully video for a dance track. However, when I saw it again, and realised that every element in the video represented a different sound in the track, I was hugely impressed.

Of course, Gondry’s video is painstakingly built, based on prior knowledge of the music, but surely once the idea has been established, some clever individuals should be able to, say, build a library of landscape elements, and have software scan audio tracks to detect commonly-occuring sounds, and attribute an appropriate visual asset?

I would love to design a visualiser based around architecture. How exciting it would be to see a randomly-built structure form before your eyes, to the soundtrack to one of your favourite songs! Structures could form, and deform, depending on the pace/volume/whatever of the track. Perhaps the style of music could inform the style of architecture. A Philip Glass symphony would generate a huge, but uniform housing complex. A three minute pop song would build a small but perfectly-formed cottage. A Black Sabbath track could build a huge, ominous gothic tower.

It wouldn’t need to be limited to architecture - anything could be generated. Plants, faces, maps of imaginary places. On discussing this subject with my good friend Imran, he pointed me to some experimental algorithmic work - check it out.

Looks like the result of a town planning meeting chaired by the Cubists! But you can see that there’s huge potential to be tapped by linking digital music to something more than pretty, but ultimately empty, pictures.

If anyone has the technical capability to develop something like this, it would be lovely to hear from you.

Tags: Design, Motion, Music
Posted in Ideas | 1 Comment »