Oscars special: top films visualised

In what is becom­ing some­thing of a trend, my entry for this month’s Information is Beautiful Awards did not make the short­l­ist (Matthew Lucas’ design is abso­lutely stun­ning). I will have to re-evaluate my non-use of Myriad Pro condensed. One day I might make it! But as the Oscars are swiftly approach­ing and this visu­al­isa­tion is all about the […]

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What is information design?

What is inform­a­tion design? I often get asked this ques­tion, and just as frequently struggle to answer. It’s known loosely by other names, graphic commu­nic­a­tion, for example, and commu­nic­a­tion design. But it also over­laps with another term you might have heard, service design. Any closer? No? Oh. To others it’s a collec­tion of design discip­lines, with a little psychology […]

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Designing an iPhone app

As part of the part-time Masters I’m doing in Information Design, we had to design an iPhone app. I’d already done a screen­shot idea for a London Bus app after Countdown the live bus track­ing system was launched, so I thought — hey, why not design a bus app? There’s loads out there just for track­ing buses, so I thought, what’s the […]

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Explaining the NHS

Lately, I’ve been work­ing on help­ing our Heart Voices team at the British Heart Foundation develop flow­charts to explain the current state of the NHS, and the changes we’re expect­ing under the new legis­la­tion. We’ve also outlined the health services in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. We want to encour­age heart patients all over the UK […]

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Three reasons to use plain language

A lot of organ­isa­tions are put off plain language because of the amount of effort it seems to require. The rounds of internal sign-off, the struggle against colleagues who aren’t aboard the plain language train need real persever­ance. It’s easy to give out negat­ive advice — you must­n’t do this, you must­n’t do that , […]

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Book review: Thinking with type

I confess, I have a prob­lem. I’m typo­phobic. No, I’m not scared of typos (pedantry is the lowest form of inter­net argu­ment). However, the idea of having to make decisions about typo­graphy in virtu­ally any situ­ation does bring me out in a cold sweat. Not to mention my not-so-secret belief that typo­graphy does­n’t really mean nearly as much […]

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Infographics: the outer limits?

Infographics can be beau­ti­ful, inform­at­ive, fascin­at­ing, genu­inely enter­tain­ing and educa­tional. On a personal level, I’m a big fan. My own over­whelm­ing need to under­stand things to the best of my abil­ity has been nicely enhanced by this recent trend. Infographics come in a few flavours (chocol­ate, straw­berry and banana). There are straight-up graph types, area types, and in the […]

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