Have you ever used a touch screen device to browse the web? Chances are, you have. iPhones and iPads were the scouts of the army of touch-enabled devices – set out to conquer worlds – and recent iPad sales statistics show that touch is here to stay.

Meanwhile, the keyboard and the mouse will probably stick around for another decade. This has some serious implications for web designers, as they need to come up with designs that work on a myriad of devices.

Responsive web design is a principle that we can use to overcome the problems that varying screen resolutions bring along. But, there is one design conception not all web designers know about: feedback.

The Golden Days

When I was in kindergarten, I was taught how to write with a pencil. At first, the device did not work properly; I could tell by the absence of grey lines on my piece of paper. My mentor explained to me that I was holding the pencil upside down. I turned the device around and began drawing again. Lines appeared, I knew that I was doing something right; I got immediate feedback.

Many pencil training sessions later, my beloved writing tool was replaced by the Personal Computer. I started browsing the web. Sometimes I would click on a link, and nothing would happen. Either the following page was loading slowly, or I had not properly pressed the mouse button. I could usually exclude the latter, as the mouse was designed to provide me with a clicking sound and some friction – immediate feedback.

Looking towards a better future

Recently, I purchased a mobile phone with a touch screen. I regularly surf the web and inevitably click on links and buttons. Sometimes, nothing happens. Is it the slow connection or did my skinny fingers miss the clickable area? There is no way to tell if I have actually clicked on a button or link, because there is no tactile or auditive feedback like I received with a mouse. This problem can be easily fixed by:

1. Setting a proper :active state for links and buttons in the css file. It is often neglected, but important to create visual distinction between a links that have or have not been activated.
2. Providing a clickable area that is large enough so that clicking on a link or button does not become Odysseus’ Journey. Add some padding to your anchors!
3. Adding interaction sounds on touch/click events. Time to dive into jQuery and html5!

Physical devices are built around the same basic principle: users provide input; the device processes the input and returns an expected output. As described by Don Norman in The Psychology of Everyday Things, providing proper feedback between input and output is key to successful user interaction. He writes:

Feedback—sending back to the user information about what action has actually been done, what resulted has been accomplished—is a well-known concept in the science of control and information theory. Imagine trying to talk to someone when you cannot even hear your own voice, or trying to draw a picture with a pencil that leaves no mark: there would be no feedback.

The web is unique in that it is a solely electronic medium. However, web designers would be wise to learn from product design and consider the ways users interact with the web.

We can empathize with Mr. Rousseau as infographics have remained a vexatious subject for The Journal staff. The article pinpoints what makes them so very irksome; they typically provide an unclear spatial representation of data and continually tip the form and function scale to an unnecessary degree, leaning fully upon the form, of course.

To put it simply, modern infographics are too confusing. One cannot help but feel as if they are piecing together a puzzle or solving a logical word problem. To put it crudely: they’re a visual face smash.

In Rousseau’s words:

“Such is the conceit of much contemporary information design: where a simple bar chart would have provided an intuitive and more accurate display, the emphasis was placed on form over function.”

A prime example

Amanda Buck’s “The Value of an Hour of Work” was commissioned for Good’s Transparency series. The graphic utilizes the quotient of the 2008 GDP per capita and hours worked annually per capita to generate the size of the cog and value stored within the center.

This is a prime example of infographics disposing utility and placing precedence upon aesthetic. These cogs represent a vague value. This takes complicated information, and makes it more confusing. The important information is not given enough visual weight to be understood at first glance. Take a look at the hours worked annually per capita; their value occupy maybe five percent of the entire circumference. This allows viewers no way to visually compare it to other countries. There is also the ratio that is placed inside of the center of the cog; of what use is this data? To simplify, it could have been omitted and viewers would be able to utilize the cog’s size as a comparative factor.

A second take

This infographic is by British designer Paul Butt, and unfortunately, there is no further publication info attached to it. The top section of the infographic contains giant concentric rings of indecipherable data, and therefore, am unable to address it.

The bottom portion contains large amounts of data in a small section, including:

• Real size of the disk
• Transfer speed
• Read speed
• Write speed
• Line-drawn depiction

The fact this information overlaps itself in several places shows its lack of efficiency and disorganized nature of the data. There is also no clear distinction between the read/write and transfer speeds. In the end, the data is presented in a way that provides the viewer no clear visual reference to judge or weigh against.

Is there still hope?

Many infographics fail at conveying information clearly. However, there must be some successful examples.

When compiling this article, I was referred to an infographic of old – one that Edward Tufte claims is “probably the best statistical graphic ever drawn.” In fact, it was one of the first ever made, by French civil engineer Charles Joseph Minard, entitled Carte figurative des pertes successives en hommes de l’Armée Française dans la campagne de Russie 1812-1813. It vizualises the size of Napoleon’s army on its march to Moscow starting at the Neman River. Temperature changes displayed across the bottom.

Upon viewing this graphic, one is quickly able to ascertain the various attributes displayed and truly grasp the magnitude of Napoleon’s march and retreat. The temperature drops and river crossings account for some of the most notable casualties.

Minard’s graphic took complicated data and created a clear and understandable vizualisation. Every visual element found on the spread is useful to the viewer.

In conclusion

Infographics can be useful tools when data is applied to aesthetic with utility in mind. Minard’s graph is a perfect representation of this: while it is not the most stylistically progressive image, it conveys exactly what it needs to in the space provided.

Once information designers are able to sift through all of the unhelpful visuals that accompany data, infographics will be of much more use to readers.

The Inksie Art Team is pleased to showcase Brent Couchman’s Print & Production Poster, now available in the Inksie Shop.

We commissioned Mr. Couchman to create a design based on one of the four Inksie Principles:

Inksie engages artists and the public alike in the medium of print. We believe that it is a powerful, communicative platform. We exercise the medium’s strengths through distributing original works of printed art and design to the public.

The print is a three-color serigraph on 18″ × 24″, 80-pound cover. Mr. Couchman chose French Paper’s luscious Hot Fudge from their Pop Tone line. It comes in a limited edition of 100.

The studio works primarily in print and packaging; their portfolio consists of magazine spreads, business cards, letterheads, promotional items.

You created the 3D typeface for German magazine Jpeople, correct? How did they approach you for the project?

I started this 3D typeface as a personal project in 2006 and finished it in 2009. It started as a 2D typeface; after I added grey tones to it I realized that there might be more than one way of viewing it than a 2D typeface. I began to see the possibilities of a 3D typeface and began experimenting with random words made out of foam board and wood. This resulted in a 3D typeface, constructed out of paper, that is easy to use, reproduce and has plenty of possibilities for design processes. Thanks to Zedz for being a good sparring partner, always there to bounce ideas off.

I presented the experiments, research, results and the whole 3D typeface in an A2 poster. Jpeople received a copy from this poster, they liked it and decided to write an article about it for their 3D issue, issue 12. They asked me if I could make a type treatment specially for Jpeople. This resulted in the Type piece (below), inspired by the colors of a shooting circle.

Do you have a name for the typeface?

The typeface is called 3D typeface. Pretty basic, but it says it all.

What was your process for developing the shapes on the 3D type? How did this translate to easy cut-out patterns for each letter?

First, I planned on making letters out of wood. I quickly realized that it would be hard to form words or sentences this way. Furthermore, people would not be able to experience the fun of making the 3D letters themselves. Therefore I had to come up with a more creative approach to trigger other people to bring this 3D typeface into operation. I had to figure out a way to produce and reproduce the typeface, ensuring the sense of playfulness stayed intact while working with the 3D typeface. This resulted in a typeface made out of paper: constructed by cutting, folding and gluing the paper together, like a building model.

Are you offering the EPS for the cut-out patterns as a download? Where might one find it?

Yes, the 3D typeface comes as an EPS file. By offering the typeface in this format, the final decisions on size and color are handed over to the user.

To purchase the typeface give me an email at jarrik@jarrik.com. Price is 35 Euro.

What is your experience working with type?

I explore the boundaries of what type is and what it could be. See how far I can push the boundaries between illegible but still readable type. In my subconscious there is always a concept within the typeface. If I look back at the Puzzle, Soft Machine and NBLight typeface they all started with a concept and a new approach on type. For the NBLight typeface Stefan Gandl (Neubau) and I started with a real installation. Since we could not use these images in Fontlab, Stefan suggested that we could make a vector/digital version of the typeface. This version is published in Neubau Modul and for sale on Neubauladen. A nice future of this typeface is that the cables of each letter are different!

How do you approach typography?

I see typography as shapes instead of the meaning of the word or letter. With this approach I design and treat typography, finding a balance between shape and readability. Always working within a concept and not by trends, which I think more people should do! We have to look forward and not to each other. Innovate and not recreate.

Since the start of the 3D typeface I approach and think more in 3D. Experiencing the whole process of printing the letters, cutting them out, gluing them together, arranging them in place and taking photos of them feels good. I just finished a new 3D typeface made out of blocks with on each side another form. Six or nine of these blocks together create a letter or a number.

The thoughts of not only thinking in graphic purposes, have broadened my vision and changed my approach of what typography could do. In the development of the 3D typeface I looked at the possibilities of 3D typography on buildings. Maybe this is the future of advertising on buildings?

What are you working on now?

Right now I am working on a logo/logo system for my own studio. The idea behind this logo/logo system is: The work I make is my identity as a designer. People may know my name but they don’t know/recognize my work, or vice versa. That is why I use parts of the logos and typefaces I made for clients for my own logo. I use the letters from the logos and typefaces that are also in my own name.

What are your future plans?

I am working on a new project called 50 Wallpapers from the City of Amsterdam. The product is an A4 note block with 50 pages with 50 different walls. The seams/grooves in the walls are the lines that you could write on. There are street signs, graffiti tags and other specific signs that could only be found in Amsterdam. You can recognize Amsterdam through these walls. It is a project about public space and city culture. This idea could also work for other cities like Berlin, Paris, New York, et cetera. The cover of the note block is a typographic translation off a wall.

I am now in the phase where I try to find a publisher who is interested in it.

Besides this project I will work on some new identities, logos and I have a couple ideas for a new 3D typeface.

More of Jarrik Muller’s work may be viewed on his website and Behance profile.

Unfortunately, Mr Rams was not available for an interview. His thoughts on each principle, reproduced with permission from Vitsoe, come from conversation with Mark Adams, Managing Director of the furniture company.

Based on my experience as a designer, I have distilled the essentials of my design philosophy into ten principles. But these principles cannot be set in stone because, just as technology and culture are constantly developing, so are ideas about good design.

Good design is innovative.

The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

Good design makes a product useful.

A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasises the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

Good design is aesthetic.

The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

Good design makes a product understandable.

It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.

Good design is unobtrusive.

Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.

Good design is honest.

It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.

Good design is long-lasting.

It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.

Good design is thorough down to the last detail.

Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

Good design is environmentally friendly.

Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

Good design is as little design as possible.

Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

This is the last entry of a ten-part series based on Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design. The Journal asked writers and illustrators to contribute to the project. Each writer wrote on one of Rams’ principles; each illustrator reacted to a writer’s essay.

I am a big fan of Dieter Rams and his ten principles. This last principle sums up all previous nine principles into one:

Find as few solutions for as many problems as possible.

Which is a nearly perfect definition when you talk about design as product design. To understand its theoretic core you need to see that he uses two slightly different notions of design in the same sentence.

Good design is as little design as possible.

With design, as in “Good design,” he refers to design as a form of basic engineering. With design as in “little design” he refers to design as the process of giving shape. (In German, design is Gestaltung, literally: shaping.) If you replace the two notions of design with these more specific definitions, the sentence sounds less paradoxical (and less rhetoric):

Good engineering is giving as little shape as possible.

So good engineers avoid shaping objects? Isn’t engineering just that: giving shape to a concept? Yes, it is: Good engineers focus on shaping the necessary parts of a product. In other words:

In a perfectly engineered product every shape is necessary.

Which, of course, is consistent with the rhetoric in principles two, four and seven. The only way for me to add some opinionated salt to the ten principles – which, to me, read more like a poem than an engineering guideline – is that design also needs a break from total consistency to feel humane and approachable.

Oliver Reichenstein wrote on Rams’s tenth principle, Good design is as little design as possible. Mr Reichenstein is the founder of the design firm Information Architects. Lab Partners, Ryan Meis’ and Sarah Labieniec’s design and illustration studio, created the above illustration based on Mr Reichenstein’s essay. They have designed and illustrated for numerous clients including Monocle, Wired Magazine and HP.

This is entry nine of a ten-part series based on Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design. The Journal asked writers and illustrators to contribute to the project. Each writer wrote on one of Rams’ principles; each illustrator reacted to a writer’s essay.

Designers are not tree-killers or waste-makers. Rather, we are material utilizers, for better or worse. We create experiences, provide information, and promote interactions, whether it be in products, printed materials, or the spaces we inhabit. Rams was quite ahead of his time with his statement, “Good Design is environmentally friendly.” Today, environmentalism is all the rage. You’d be hard pressed to find a brochure, a piece of packaging, or even an iron that lacks a small statement or tiny leaf proclaiming its care for our world. Worse than that, big brands seem to tout their environmental concern – so much that there is almost a backlash to it.

But this isn’t what Rams’ principle was about.

We have so many options as designers today. The bright side of the trendiness of environmentalism currently seen in the consumer world is that we as designers are pushed a little harder to make conscious choices about the materials we use and decisions we make. For example, there are widely available and well-made recycled papers and plastics, as well as soy-based inks.

But this also isn’t what Rams’ principle was about.

The beauty of Rams’ ninth principle is that it interacts and relies on the others. Like all of them, it says one thing: good design is thoughtful. To be thoughtful, we must be asking questions, and the question for every project must be, “what is our environment?” This single question leads to many others. They provide a rubric for judging our work. In it, we set limits on what materials we use and how much, we decide the lifetime of a particular piece of work.

Aaron Heth wrote on Rams’ ninth principle, Good design is environmentally friendly. Mr Heth co-hosts Read Between the Leading, a podcast for design education and discussion. He recently graduated from Savannah College of Art & Design’s design program and is freelancing in the San Francisco area. Jeffrey Bowman created the above illustration based on Mr Heth’s essay. Mr Bowman works under the name Studio-Bowlegs. He is currently enrolled as MA student at The University of Huddersfield, and has designed for numerous clients, including Urban Outfitters, Computer Arts, and Nike.

This is entry eight of a ten-part series based on Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design. The Journal asked writers and illustrators to contribute to the project. Each writer wrote on one of Rams’ principles; each illustrator reacted to a writer’s essay.

Taken together, Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design represent an extension of Bauhaus Modernism, which, while still offering useful guidance to practitioners today, has been successfully challenged by the Pop and Post-Modern generation. However, the principle “Good design is thorough down to the last detail” is equally applicable to design work that crosses ideological boundaries. In the context of the other nine principles it is something of a no-brainer. It could be argued that it simply reinforces the other tenets – after all, we need to have ‘something to be thorough in,’ such as ensuring innovation, usefulness, understanding, aesthetic beauty, environmental friendliness…you get the picture, but how else might we think of thoroughness?

Context is of vital importance here. When Rams was at Braun, industrial design was a smaller and more focused profession than it is today. The field has fragmented and grown and now encompasses speculative projects, critical proposals, provocative and experimental works. Recognising in what context an object belongs determines how thorough different aspects of its design need to be. It would be ridiculous to criticise a lack of manufacture-ability in a piece intended as a gallery one-off.

In mass-market design, there are guidelines many designers follow – guidelines that most of Rams’ tenets include. Thoroughness is manifested in a consideration of the user’s needs, yet designers sometimes test their work only on themselves. A designer can never experience their own product as if for the first time and can easily assume that everything will be clearly understandable. Living with your own prototypes is a good start but enabling others to do so is even more important.

It’s clear that Rams’ interpretation of thoroughness lies not just in diligence but in applying coherence to the otherwise arbitrary decisions designers face. He invents strategies and applies these across all aspects of the object. Mies reputedly said “God is in the details,” but more to the point, ‘He’ is in the consistency of those details. Rams is keen on his analogy that good design is like an English butler; there when you need him, in the background when you don’t. If the butler were wearing a hat with bells on it with his suit, we would notice. If he is going to be a jester he should wear the full outfit.

Today, designers need to be more thorough than ever before. Our increasing awareness of the damage caused by the overproduction of non-recyclable, high-embodied energy products – unethically manufactured and destined for landfills – means designers have a responsibility towards being thorough in areas that were off the radar for Rams and his contemporaries during most of their careers.

Tim Parsons wrote on Rams’ eighth principle, Good design is thorough down to the last detail. Mr Parsons has taught at numerous universities in England since 2002 and regularly contributes to design publications. His recently wrote Thinking Objects: Contemporary Approaches to Product Design and regularly records his thoughts on his blog, Object Thinking. Paul Blow created the above illustration based on Mr Parsons’ essay. Mr Blow is an editorial illustrator based in Dorset, UK. His work has appeared in The Guardian, Boston Globe, and Business Week.

This is entry seven of a ten-part series based on Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design. The Journal asked writers and illustrators to contribute to the project. Each writer wrote on one of Rams’ principles; each illustrator reacted to a writer’s essay.

But what of pixels, or bits and bytes? If I died
tomorrow, I can confidently assume that the
books on my shelves will last a hundred years.
But the files on my laptop – where I’m typing
these words right now – won’t survive more
than a year or two. The words I’ve blogged not
much longer than that; the drives they live on
will fail, or else the space I’m no longer paying
for will be filled by someone else.

Does this mean they are inferior? Perhaps. But,
perhaps instead long lasting can now be mea-
sured not only in years, but in minds – not in
how long an object persists, but in how many
people it changes. A book that is read by mil-
lions but vanishes in the span of a decade does
more good than one that sits untouched for
millennia. Speaking of the destruction of the
Library at Alexandria, Borges said, “If a book
is lost, then someone will write it again, even-
tually. That should be enough immortality for
everyone.” Meaning, nothing lasts forever, but
some things last long enough.