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Job: Principal Teaching Fellow

Hong Kong Polytechnic University is looking for a Principal Teaching Fellow.

The School of Design of Hong Kong Polytechnic University is restructuring its academic programmes for 2022/23. The Principal Teaching Fellow will take up a role for the teaching and learning activities related to the new scheme-based undergraduate programme BA (Hons) in Design. This covers the areas of Interior Design, Environment Design, Advertising Design, Information Design, Media Design, Product Design, Interaction Design, Social Design and Service Design.

Consideration of applications will commence on 12 December 2022 until the position is filled. 

Website: School of Design.

Conversation with Rupesh Vyas, 1 December 2022 at 1500 UTC

Public participation is crucial in the present-day context of increasing complex scenario of data-driven approaches in various domains. I will discuss the challenges and exploration of information design approaches …

Eliciting public participation through information design

Public participation is crucial in the present-day context of increasingly complex scenarios of data-driven approaches in various domains. I will discuss the challenges and exploration of information design approaches through case examples from my teaching and practice-based design research projects at Aalto University.

Case examples: Information design for Elections, Air Quality, Health, Public transport.

Rupesh Vyas is an associate professor at Aalto University, responsible for the information design focus area within the Visual Communication Design major. He is also leading the practice-based Design research projects in information design at the Department of Art and Media.

Rupesh teaches information design courses and is engaged in collaborative design research with many public sector organizations in Finland. He led the collaborative project with city of Helsinki to create an interactive visualisation of Air Quality data for eliciting public participation. He is the driving force behind the collaborative design research projects with FINNGEN for creating future tools of visualizing genetic data for scientific discoveries.

Rupesh is also involved in organizing the Visualizing Knowledge conference, the biennial conference held at Aalto University, focused on various topics of Information Design and Data Visualization, where student work, as well as ongoing research is presented along with talks by international experts.

Previously, he was a senior faculty at the National Institute of Design, India, responsible for developing and teaching information and interaction design research and education. He has contributed significantly to some of the major projects with national importance in India, which includes the Design for Census of India 2011, Design of Population Register, Design of Multipurpose National Identity Card and unifying Information and visual design standards for Driver’s License.

Registration

New Zealand: Plain Language Bill

The New Zealand Parliament approved a ‘Plain Language Bill’.

On 19 October, the New Zealand Parliament approved a ‘Plain Language Bill’. The Bill was announced and its contents was made public. 

Section 7 of this legislation mentions a need for guidance. There will be Plain Language officers who check documents and spoken texts. The ISO-standard on Plain Language – IIID contributed to this standard – might become directly applicable.

Some comments appeared in Stuff and the British Guardian.

IIID Conversations

As the name suggests, they are conversations as much as talks. The speakers make short presentations of their work or ideas, then the conversation will open out to include everyone.

IIID Conversations is a series of informal events. As the name suggests, they are conversations as much as talks. The speakers make short presentations of their work or ideas, then interview them and the conversation will open out to include everyone.

In 2021 we consulted our members on what they would like to see. Their answer was ‘community’ – most wanted to feel more connected to others in their profession, to gain insight about practice, and to gain new knowledge about the various different types of work information designers do.

IIID Conversations is free for IIID members, and €5 for non-members.

Coming up:

1 December at 1500 UTC

Rupesh Vyas Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland

5 January 2023 at 1500 UTC

Rodrigo Ramírez, Information Designer, Associate Professor at School of Design, UC Chile (Diseño UC).

Previous Conversations:

Carlos Rosa, IADE – Faculty of Design, Technology and Communication, Lisbon, Portugal: Moving Pictograms

Will Stahl-Timmins, Data Graphics Designer at The Britisch Medical Journal: A picture of health: Visualising medical information for doctors.

Rob Waller (Simplification Centre, UK), discussing the Information Design Summer School – how it works, who comes and how it links theory and practice through critiquing and practical projects.

Oliver Tomlinson (TDL Creative, UK). Oliver uses information design and visualisation in the construction industry, and will talk about the contribution information graphics makes to successful bid documents.

Alex Tyers (Transmission Design, Australia). Alex’s practice includes financial information, medicines information, forms and other complex information.

Conversation with Carlos Rosa, 3 November 2022 at 1500 UTC

The introduction of motion is an important contribution to facilitate the interpretation of pictograms and to enable them to develop in other ways,

Moving Pictograms

The introduction of motion is an important contribution to facilitate the interpretation of pictograms and to enable them to develop in other ways, for example, to encourage civic behaviour, enhance the content of a message and to create emotional ties.

Carlos Rosa, with colleague Maria Diaz, won an IIID Award in 2020 for their fascinating work on moving pictograms. For years we’ve assumed pictograms are static, but digital channels allow them to move. The introduction of motion makes pictograms easier to interpret, and also encourages compliance with their message, and creates emotional ties. Carlos will present this project, and data that demonstrates significant improvements in comprehension.

Carlos Rosa is an independent designer, researcher, and design professor. He is Director of IADE, the largest and most reputed creative school in Portugal. His research project explores the knowledge in the exercise of design applied to universal communication systems. He has received a Portuguese Design Award, and he was described as “Design Icon” by Computer Arts magazine. Carlos writes and illustrates regularly for Portuguese newspapers. He is father of Simão and Joana, has written a book and has also planted a tree!
Carlos Rosa Design

Registration

Job: Assistant Professor of Design

Chapman University is looking for an Assistant Professor

The Design Program, within Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, at Chapman University in Orange County, California invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Design, beginning August 2023.

Please direct inquiries to Jeanie Randazzo, Manager, Department of Art, at randazzo@chapman.edu

Application review begins December 1 and continues until the position is filled.

Website: Wilkinson College of Arts, Chapman University in Orange County, California.

Conversation with Will Stahl-Timmins, 6 October 2022 at 1500 UTC

At the BMJ we use infographics and data visualisations to convey the information we publish to busy health professionals in an efficient and engaging way.

A picture of health: Visualising medical information for doctors

At The BMJ (British Medical Journal) we use infographics and data visualisations to convey the information we publish to busy health professionals in an efficient and engaging way. In my talk I’ll introduce the kinds of graphics we make, including full page “visual summaries”, interactive graphics, and visual abstracts.

Grid of 16 colourful Infographics, none of them are readable in detail.

Registration link to be updated shortly

Will Stahl-Timmins is Data Graphics Designer at The BMJ. His background is in graphic design. He holds a PhD in the use of information graphics in health technology assessment from Exeter Medical School. Outside work, he spends a lot of time playing with his daughter (currently age 2), cooking, gardening, and playing board games with anyone who he can get to the table.

Registration

Updated book series by Rune Pettersson

Prof. Dr. Rune Pettersson updates his series of 12 books on Information Design. Download these for free.

Rune Pettersson has updated his series of twelve books on Information Design. This series gives an excellent up-to-date overview of the literature.

All twelve books can be downloaded for free from:

  1. Message Design [Download link]
  2. ID theories [Download link]
  3. Text Design [Download link]
  4. Image Design [Download link]
  5. Using images [Download link]
  6. Reuse in A&D [Download link]
  7. Graphic Design [Download link]
  8. Cognition [Download link]
  9. Learning [Download link]
  10. Predecessors and Pioneers [Download link]
  11. It depends [Download link]
  12. ID-concepts [Download link]

Call for papers: SYMBOL’22: SYMBOL SOURCEBOOK@50

Call for papers for a symposium to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Henri Dreyfuss’ Symbol Sourcebook.

We will examine the 50th anniversary of industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss’ discipline defining Symbol Sourcebook, to reveal the legacy underpinning our current fascination with emojis, icons and symbols and explore new symbol applications.

We welcome abstracts for papers from the design community for The Symbol Group’s inaugural online symposium.


DAY ONE examines the importance of symbols using Dreyfuss’ book as a starting point – considering themes of internationalism, data-visualisation, universal language, symbol design history and the influence of technology.

DAY TWO focuses on symbols in contemporary practice including social media (emojis and stickers), inclusivity, sustainability and diversity, critical applications (emergencies/disasters), and symbol language experiments.

Keynote speakers: Prof Keith Bresnahan, Prof Elizabeth Guffrey, Steven Heller, Nigel Holmes, Prof Hisayasu Ihara, Jennifer Lee, Ellen Lupton and Karel van der Waarde

Deadline for abstracts: 30 July 2022

Book: Human Interface and the Management of Information: Visual and Information Design

Conference proceedings of the 2022 HCI virtual conference (June 16-July 1, 2022).

Sakae Yamamoto and Hirohiko Mori edited these conference proceedings of the virtual HCI International Conference 2022. It contains 39 articles.

Part 1 focuses on human-centered design approaches, information design and quality, visual design, visualization and big data, and information, cognition and learning.

Website: Springer

Job: Assistant Professor, Design and Social Justice

Mount Royal University in Calgary (Canada) is looking for an Assistant Professor.

The Department of Information Design, Faculty of Business and Communication Studies at Mount Royal University is looking for a colleague passionate about design education that fosters inclusion, advances equity, and decenters whiteness.

The successful candidate will demonstrate a primary commitment to undergraduate teaching and an ongoing research program. The focus will be on teaching courses in the Information Design program and developing senior-level courses in their area of expertise. 

Website: Faculty of Business and Communication Studies, Mount Royal University

New book: Visualizing Complexity

A guide to transform complex or unstructured numbers and texts into creative and playful designs.

Description from the publisher: ‘How can you turn dry statistics into attractive and informative graphs? How can you present complex data sets in an easily understandable way? How can you create narrative diagrams from unstructured data? This handbook of information design answers these questions. Nicole Lachenmeier and Darjan Hil condense their extensive professional experience into an illustrated guide that offers a modular design system comprised of 80 elements. Their systematic design methodology makes it possible for anyone to visualize complex data attractively and using different perspectives. At the intersection of design, journalism, communication and data science, Visualizing Complexity opens up new ways of working with abstract data and invites readers to try their hands at information design.’

Website: www.superdot.studio

Conversation with Alex Tyers, 3 May 2022 at 1300 UTC

Information design for financial communications

The next in our series of IIID Conversations is with Alex Tyers of Transmission Design, one of Australia’s leading information designers. With over 20 years experience of every variety of information design, he is an expert in instructional design, forms, customer communications and plain language.

During this session I will be talking about information design for financial communications. Most people I talk to express surprise that a bank statement, form or insurance letter is even designed at all, maybe because they are often so bad. However, I can confirm that – yes – financial communication design is a thing. I will be discussing how financial comms can be improved, and what can hold this back. I will be showing examples from projects I have worked on for financial organisations and highlighting some of the things I have learned. I look forward to chatting to you soon.

Registration

Alex Tyers is one of Australia’s leading information designers. With over 20 years experience of every variety of information design, he is an expert in instructional design, forms, customer communications and plain language.

Transmission Design