information design

(Disclaimer: This is more of a data dump than anything, anything else!)

When I was in high school, my ultimate professional dream was to be a graphic designer. I'm not sure what it was that really made me want it. Thinking about it now, maybe it set me apart or gave me a creative outlet, maybe it gave me an area to explore and try to conquer. I also think it made me feel like an artist, which in a more conventional sense (drawing?), I never was.

I got an internship at a boutique design firm owned by two amazing designers. They were married, the guy was French. The junior designers whom I sat with told me on my first day that the most important question for a graphic designer is WHY. Why was this icon placed here instead of there, why this color, why this lay-out, why?

Design, after all, is not art. Design needs to make sense. And good design makes... invisible sense. (Does that make sense? Haha probably not.)

I've continue to carry a torch for graphic design although I don't do it anymore. I still appreciate something that I think was designed well. Tight grids and interesting typography still catch my eye.

Right now, my favorite branch of GD is information design. Arranging and presenting complex information in a way that makes it easier uto se. In essence, it's about effective communication and it takes a lot of things into consideration, such as understanding what language and codes people easily understand, usability, ergonomics.

Maybe more than other kinds of design (I'm not entirely sure about this), information design takes the user's point of view so that the user experience is as simple and obvious as possible.

The most obvious application for this would be in wayfinding - helping people navigate museums, exhibits, transit systems, roads, etc. There is also informational graphics - signage on gym equipment, or appliances. It can also be applied to web design.

Several pages and tons of content go into any webpage. And the starting point of any webpage is a site map that details navigation through the site. I've seen maps that are pages and pages long, and the best maps take every option that users might need into account. (This is really dorky, but this excites me to no end. My new dream profession might just be web architect.)

And one thing this highlights to me is that what I love about graphic design isn't that it is artistic, but that it makes sense. That it is design, not art. Because there is, of course, the visual side of graphic design. But it's more about effective communication, not aesthetics. Not that there are no aesthetics in graphic design. But really good design doesn't just look pretty, but it makes sense.

One of the souvenirs I wanted to buy on a recent trip to New York was a poster of a map of the bus routes. Local public transportation really freaks me out for more reasons than I care to enumerate, but the bus and subway system in New York made complete and perfect sense. And what a beautiful map!

Nestle Pops

Been suuuper busy! But one of the things I've always wanted to do is to keep a running tally of local branded microsites. Pretty soon I think this will be too long but to kick things off, let's start with Nestle's Get Poppin'.

To promote their new ice cream Pops ("chocolate covered vanilla ice cream", the site reads) they've set up a Flash game where you have to flick Pops into band members' mouths, for the chance to win an XBox 360 and Rock Star game.

There are two levels... or maybe I've only reached the second level, seeing as how my highest accuracy so far has been 50%.

What's interesting is that the winner (it seems) will be chosen by a raffle draw, and not depending on a high score. I guess those were the only mechanics that the BFAD would agree to!

My world according to TV

I remember watching Jem and the Holograms everyday when I was a kid. Then when we first got cable they would show morning cartoons on Saturday nights because of the time difference. My sister and I would watch Darkwing Duck, Chip and Dale, Cowboys of Moo Mesa. I also loved Teddy Ruxpin, My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake.

My love for television has never diminshed. I swear I've seen every episode of Friends, Arrested Development and Sex and the City. Right now I follow about ten series - dramas like Grey's and Lost, comedies like Ugly Betty, How I Met Your Mother and Entourage, and a bunch of reality shows like Next Top Model and Project Runway. Okay, okay I watch One Tree Hill and The Bachelor, too!

So as a complete TV nut, it was a gift when I came across the best website ever created - surfthechannel.com. They have every show ever created! I think. At least every show I'm interested in. Episodes are updated almost as soon as they air in the US. It is magic.

They even have shows that stopped airing! They have Jem, Perfect Strangers, Golden Girls, Felicity, The Nanny, Dawson's Creek, Remington Steele! Again, magic.

Episodes load around the same speed as YouTube videos, so you don't have to wait hours to watch, like when you download episodes on BitTorrent. It's instant gratification, on demand.

I'm not sure how long the site will stay up, since obviously all the content is pirated. But I hope it stays open (and ad-free) forever. I would say good-bye to Blogger, Yahoo, Google and Facebook, just not this site!

Web Trends map

I love this! It combines two things in this world that really fascinate me -












- the online world and wayfinding. Beautiful!

Click the image to link to the guys who made it, or to download a bigger version of the map. There's a 2008 version too.

e-Bay Philippines

This is great. I was looking through ebay.com.ph to see the kind of stuff people are selling locally. It’s great stuff!

I’ve seen people selling everything online from really random things like umbrellas, leggings to premium items like LV handbags to their own lines of bathing suits, shoes and clothes.

I've always wondered how much these entrepreneurs actually get to sell. At a conference I attended last one of the speakers mentioned how he met one of these virtual retailers (she sold the aforementioned tsinelas) and found out that she makes quite a lot of money. In this guy’s words, “More than your average Christmas bonus.” Not bad.

So I decided that I wanted to set up an e-commerce site of my own. Something that would require minimal investment and especially something that wouldn’t need any physical setup to allow people to check the products out. Your typical Multiply e-vendor.

But what product?

I tried to think of all sorts of stuff that I might find in Divisoria – cheap jewellery, school supplies or home accessories – that I might be able to re-sell via my e-commerce site. Then I remembered a box of stuff I had gathered while cleaning my room, that I had set aside for my mom to sell at the next village garage sale.

Let me add that my mom has been on a cleaning frenzy. A cleaRing frenzy. She’s been re-decorating our rooms one by one and has had us clear out the “junk” that the members of my family as genetically-destined rat packs have been hoarding for years. Now our family area is littered with boxes of stuff we haven’t seen or touched since we were children – my brother’s old toy soldiers, piles of science books from my lolo, heaps of half-used school supplies and a plethora of other items.

I got, what I swear I thought, was my Eureka moment.

Why don’t I just re-sell all this stuff? It seemed like a good idea at the time. I saw the slice of bread someone bought for $50+ on e-Bay since it had “Mother Mary’s face” on it. It really seemed like I was on to something huge. (Now seems like a good time to mention that it was Friday night and the end of a particularly draining week and I was, as I usually am at the end of any work night or week, completely braindead.)

I decided to take a look at our local e-Bay to see the quality of stuff people were re-selling locally. And then, just a few seconds after my breakthrough idea, I realized it wouldn’t work. Here are a few reasons why:

Hershey's Chocolate Limited 100 Years Collectible Rare - PHP2,500.00 Did you also think this sounded like some very rotten chocolate?

Elegant Cross Ballpen case – P100.00 Nevermind that there’s no ballpen...






LAND FOR LEASE GREAT FOR WAREHOUSE JUNKYARD GARAGE ETC. – PHP20,000
At least he’s setting your expectations by puting “junkyard” in the title.



Bijoulled Hibiscus Necklace – PHP250.00
Bijoulled??





And best of all!

NEW Postcard Keanu Reeves - PHP10.00
"NEW". For interested parties, this guy was also selling postcards from other "new" Keanu movies like Speed, Johnny Mnemonic and A Walk In The Clouds.






So that kind of put an end to my e-Bay idea. But I'll still be on the lookout for an actual breakthrough e-commerce idea. Just wait!

Gondry's Dream

Motorola recently debuted an ad for the new Razr 2 phone directed by Michael Gondry. I love his work and I was positively surprised about this new spot.

The spot itself is great (reminiscent of past Gondry work like Eternal Sunshine…) but what's even better is the use of web to extend buzz for the TVC spot. On the dedicated microsite are an interview with Gondry, behind-the-scenes photos from the shoot and of course, downloadable desktop wallpaper (in the photo on the right is the one I chose). This site is more about the actual ad and directory Gondry, but should viewers want more product information, they can "experience" the Moto Razr2 at the product site.

Points for engagement!

What is this???

In a video on You Tube, a guy named H725 who claims that he's from the year 2059 has gone back in time to warn us of the disappearance of words and text. "Save the text save the words," he says. He has a video that shows him and (what I suppose is) a device from the future that shows the dangers he speaks of - no words or text, only sounds and images.

The cause of all this is an organization/person called Bright.ly. His call to action is to keep our eyes open and contact him for anything that looks "strange". The video ends with a link to his website.

What could this be?
- Viral for a new type of monitor, camera or computer?
- Promotion for the new season of Heroes?
- Teaser for a new show or movie...? This would make for a really interesting premise!
- My real guess is that it's for Microsoft's Silverlight...

Who knows what this is. On his site we find out that he has traced the disappearance back to September 27, 2007... fifteen days from today! I'll be waiting!