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First of all, I am sorry I start writing this blog a little late. I will try to make it as chronological as possible, and keep the presentation true to the original one held by professor Yamazaki.

The first lecture of this lecture series about "Information Design" consisted of explaining us the schedule and the aims of this course as well as scratching the surface of this field of design.



As Mr. Yamazaki used to be an employee of IBM we were explained about the theory of Information design using IBM as an example case study. IBM is a corporation in which certain kind of design methods are strongly visible. The two major ideologies are the following:

1) Logical, technical approach which is naturally taken care of by the company's own researchers and engineers. The way they work is notable however, most of the design and engineering work is done keeping human centeredness in mind.

2) The second approach that is widely used in this company is the experiental or experience based one. This way of desigining is taught and brought into the company by outside advisors and consultant experts.




The latter design approach was implemented to IBM by the famous duo of Paul Rand and Richard Sapper who are probably the most important people behind IBM's success story in terms of design. Paul Rand was the infamous graphic designer who is behind the logo of IBM, probably one of the best known and most frequently imitated logos in the world.
His way of designing revolved around the concepts of Form and Content. Of which both have an essential role in making good design.

Form: colors, shapes and layout. These are the three key aspects when evaluating a successful design's form. Paul Rand spent a lot of time in trying to crack the the key of successful designs by studying several famous examples.

Content: context, purpose, goal. Rand excelled in these three key notes of the content of design by using his so called sixth sense, talent. Other easier ways of giving a design content is reminding oneself of the ethnicity of the target audience and by carrying out extensive user research studies.

As a product design student I am more than interested in finding out more about Richard Sapper's ideas. The methods he uses makes him quite unique if compared to the now a days crop of product designers and industrial designers who are stuck in front of their computers. Richard Sapper is well known for his very simple sketches and very fast mockups made of paper. This kind fast prototyping gives the designer a glance of the possible final product very early on in the design process.

This leads to the obvious outcome: when designers have their own original design methods the concepts they produce are also very unique.
A good example of this kind of lack of versatility of end products in a company or a design office is in Yamazaki's opinion Naoto Fukasawa's office. A studio which is lead by a strong character who has too strong of an opinion, as his presence doesn't leave room for original designs of the obviously talented young designers working under the same roof. This kind of atmosphere leads to very homogenic design pool as all of the products made under Fukasawa look more or less the same.

In the nutshell what designers should concentrate more on is actually designing their own unique design method and that is what we will attempt during this this course.