TITLE
The difference between here and there: what graphic design brings to
e-space.
SUMMARY
What does the practice of graphic design have to offer a medium
originally created within the technical-scientific community? In the
fluid medium of e-space, a primary difference between hypermedia,
broadcast media, and print is the visual structure of information
and the levels of interactivity. The designers in this panel discuss
the interdisciplinary processes involved in designing interfaces,
graphical precedents for visualizing information, and the
structuring of electronic spaces.
OVERVIEW
Everything changes. Everything stays the same. Electronic spaces
offer designers almost unprecedented opportunities for design. A
closer look at this new medium reveals that we are still grappling
with the same problems and processes of how we structure, arrange,
and perceive information. Designing for e-space is similar to
solving an equation with an increasingly large and diverse set of
variables. Each solution contains different visual, structural and
technical considerations. In e-space there is no intrinsic
difference between here and there. Difference is realized through
the visual form given to information regardless of its location or
source. In the absence of specific environmental cues, the user's
relationship to information is determined by its visual structure.
What does the practice of graphic design offer to the electronic
medium? How can visual and information designers and engineers best
collaborate to create workable interfaces within an increasingly
more complex environment? What is the future of writing and the book
in e-space? How do we communicate the concepts and processes of
e-space in design curriculm?
Lisa Koonts, panel organizer
Lisa Koonts is a print and digital graphic designer. She has a BS in
computer science, master's degree in graphic design, and a
background in technical theatre. She has been working as a web
designer and with a virtual reality stage company.
Andrew Blauvelt & Edwin Utermohlen
Andrew Blauvelt is Chair of the Department of Graphic Design at NC
State University. He has written and lectured about information
design and digital technology in numerous venues.
Edwin Utermohlen is a Visiting Professor in Graphic Design at NC
State University. He designs interactive media and web sites and
creates digital prints through his company; RED.
Graphic design evolved out of the division of labor associated with
bringing messages to the public. The activity of designing such
messages traditionally fell to those who controlled the means of
producing them: namely typesetters and printers. Not until the
twentieth century did the means of producing messages become
segmented so that the creation of designs became distinct from their
reproduction and distribution. As such, graphic designers acted as
"gatekeepers" to mass communications, mediating between clients and
those capable of reproducing and distributing messages. Graphic
designers exist as mediating agents between specific content "here"
and specific audiences "there." With the personal computer the
distinct activities of design, production, and distribution are
re-integrated. Therefore, it might seem as if graphic designers are
no longer a necessary component in the communications equation. But
this notion would be problematic because it confuses technology with
design; the means of doing things with a way of thinking and making
things.
Part of what graphic designers can bring to e-space is their
practical experience in print. Part of this legacy includes
information design, namely the graphical representation of
information through typography and imagery.
Until recently, information design has been largely limited to
translating three-dimensional and four-dimensional content into the
two-dimensional space of print. For example, maps give us a
two-dimensional representation of space, while a calendar gives us a
graphical representation of time. The advent of digital
multimedia--sound, time, motion, interaction--allows us to
"decompress" static, two-dimensional displays with the hope of
enriching the users' experience by enhancing comprehension without
sacrificing the complexity of the content.
Giving information visual form, ordering content, and orchestrating
interaction suggests a narrative, or ways of reading. Sometimes
readings are simple like the "rise and fall" of a typical graph and
sometimes complex "stories" with multiple content and varied
interpretations. As interaction with information expands, the
opportunities for developing multiple narrative approaches to the
same information grow. Importantly, by expanding the ways users can
interact with information, we more accurately reveal that
information is constructed to be interpreted and is not merely
self-evident.
Laura Kusumoto
Laura Kusumoto is Director of Production at LVL Interactive, a Web
site design and development company. Her background spans 18 years
of software engineering and multimedia production in such diverse
areas as artificial intelligence and virtual reality.
New media are the catalyst for merging applied arts and applied
sciences. As an electronic space, the Web pushes designers and
engineers to the forefront of this convergence. Like a car or a
toaster, a Web site must look good, work correctly, and sell.
Building a commercial site mixes the disciplines of graphic design,
engineering, and business--and this sometimes feels like a
convergence of water, oil, and milk. Taking cues from industrial
design, Web teams can work synergistically to deliver value and
enjoyment to the consumer.
How many of us like waiting 60 seconds to download an animated
graphical doodad that struts its moment on the stage, full of sound
and fury but meaning nothing? Today, we use the Web mainly to
retrieve information in the form of text. As the Web matures, we
will more often consume multimedia content. Web surfers prefer
convenient access to all types of content, through an interface that
immerses us in the flow of interactions. Any break in that flow is
irritating.
Some Web designers obstruct usability at the very moment they are in
a position to facilitate it. They are in this enviable position for
a reason: the Web is visual. After all, it was the graphical browser
that popularized the Internet. Without graphics, it was a cold and
inconvenient place. Corporations today are enlisting professionals
to help shift the focus of Web design from self-expression to
usability and market value.
There is no user manual for the Web. With few conventions to follow,
Web designers are groping to create interfaces with the right
balance of form and functionality--to make a Web site as easy to use
as a toaster that delivers tasty contents.
The field of industrial design offers insights for Web designers. It
devotes equal reverence to form and functionality. Separate, yet
interdependent, design processes yield a sleek-looking car with
superb performance. In commercial Web development, visual design
(graphic and information design) combines with engineering to create
a product. This presentation will review examples of industrial and
Web design with an eye towards how these disciplines interplay in
the development process.
At past SIGGRAPH conferences we've heard the plea: "We are the
visual communicators! Empower us to do the design!" Now, Web teams
are concerned not with whether, but how, we make this happen. We
need to communicate with each other to bring out the best in both
visual and engineering design. This presentation concludes by
looking at the different disciplinary cultures of graphic designers
and engineers, focusing on how to deal with each.
Anne Burdick & Louise Sandhaus
Anne Burdick is a graphic designer, critic and educator. Her firm,
The Offices of Anne Burdick, is located in Los Angeles, where she
teaches in the graduate programs at Art Center College of Design and
the California Institute of the Arts. Anne is Visual Editor of the
ELECTRONIC BOOK REVIEW (ebr), an on-line literary journal
and co-editor of ebr6, an upcoming issue on image
and narrative in new media.
Louise Sandhaus is a consultant in user-interface design and the
Associate Director of the Graphic Design Program at the California
Institute of the Arts. Recently, she was co-organizer of "Bit x Bit:
Rebuilding Design Education in the Digital Context," part of a 3-day
event on design education sponsored by the School of Visual Arts,
NY. She was also co-organizer of the Los Angeles-based panel
discussion, "Authoring Options: Who is the (Author)ity in New
Media?"
What is the future of writing and the book in e-space? And what does
this have to do with graphic design?
Anne Burdick and Louise Sandhaus will present work from new media
projects that explore these questions. Looking at the history of the
book and its role in shaping Western culture--as an object, a
technology, and a metaphor for intelligence--Anne and Louise ponder
how the forms of the future will shape what we know and how we know
it. As form-makers, organizers, and visualizers, graphic designers
have the ability to imagine new possibilities for form which enable
new constructs for thought.
Louise will present the work of two recent interdisciplinary
courses, "Mutant Design: The Future of the Book" and "The Apple
Design Project '97: The Future of Libraries," sponsored by the Apple
Research Laboratories and conducted at the California Institute of
the Arts.
Anne will be presenting her collaboration with the writers and
editors of the ELECTRONIC BOOK REVIEW, an on-line forum committed to
reviewing all aspects of book culture in the context of emerging
media, promoting translations and transformations from print to
screen, and covering literary work that is designed to be read in
electronic formats. As Visual Editor, Anne is responsible for
establishing structural parameters that will both limit and enable
the kinds of writing that can take place at the site.
Natalie Buda
Natalie Buda is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Flagler
College in St. Augustine, Florida, where she developed the Flagler
Graphics Lab for student experimentation in electronic spaces. She
has an undergraduate degree in film and video, a master's degree in
graphic design, and professional experience in corporate video.
Recently, she presented "The Electronic Muse: Rethinking Originality
and Ownership in the Digital Age" at a national symposium at the
Cummer Museum of Art.
Mastery of visual language, composition, and space are some of the
devices graphic designers use to create and steer the messages
audiences receive from a variety of media. Electronic media
(e-space) embody the elements of variable time and space, which are
not a part of traditional print media. These two variables make a
difference in conceptualizing and designing for e-space because they
allow for greater control over how the audience receives and
navigates through communication.
The visual mapping of an electronic space portrays a sense of time
and place within the electronic production, and differentiates it
from its surrounding environment. Processes used in designing
information to establish a place and time include creating visual
hierarchy, navigation through trail marking, and pacing. Some of
these methods used in authoring visual messages spring from older
conventions in cinema and print media and are reinterpreted and
expanded in e-space.
Using the procedures of visual language and the skills developed in
a graphic design curriculum, students in the Flagler Graphics Lab
(FGL) address the concepts and processes for designing in new media.
For example, can one use graphic design to influence what happens
cognitively and visually on the screen as well as between the
screens. Experiments from the FGL will be presented to demonstrate
how visual direction makes a difference between "here" and "there"
in electronic space.
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