Information Architects

Rating:
Summary: WASTE OF PAPER!
Review: I was very disapointed when I read this book. I am a professional graphic designer and very interested in information design. This book is a paradox. A book about information design wrapped in ugly design. It is too big, too selfabsorbed and seems to be oldfashioned too. A group og designerfriend padding eathother on the shoulders. It is not woth buying, however the book: "Information Anxiety by the same author is great, but has ugly confusing design too, -I dont understand why!

Rating:
Summary: Is information architecture the enemy of readibility?
Review: Many of the pieces in this book are wonderful, both the graphics we see and the narrative accounts of how projects were done. But why is the book so hard to read? Is it the abundance of white on black text, of exclusively sans serif type, of a little block as a substitute for standard paragraph indentation? Why is it hard to cite the book? If Peter Bradford is the editor, what is Wurman? And why is it so hard to find the publisher information? In brief, maybe what the book needed was a good book designer.

Rating:
Summary: ART versus communication (ART wins)
Review: Saul Wurman is one of these artistic types who use closely spaced white on black text. The book is therefore an example of bad design and extremely difficult to read. His examples might be good, but it is hard work to read about them. The book is therefore NOT a design guide for information. However, the pictures look nice, so you may want to leave the book around if you have no other means of impressing visitors.

Rating:
Summary: Examples of best practices for communicating info visually
Review: This is a splendid collection of some of the best examples of how information can be communicated clearly using visual elements. It covers a range of information from maps and tours to convoluted political schemes and stories from great literature. And I'm only half-way through the book. It's even taught me about calories -- Peter Bradford's illustration of them is so powerful and so simple. If you have a need or desire to represent information visually for any reason, this book illustrates an abundance of possible directions or solutions. Dig in.

Rating:
Summary: ART versus communication (ART wins)
Review: This year, those of us who always gravitated to the picture books on library day have had two reasons to celebrate. Edward Tufte published his third magnificent work, Visual Explanations, and Richard Saul Wurman has favored us with this beautifully produced edition. First and foremost, this book is about sheer visual delight. The delight we get when we discover new facts and relationships revealed in graphic ways by the information architects presented. White text on black backgrounds notwithstanding, (See another review elsewhere in this section. I don''t find it difficult for my 45 year old eyes to follow) Wurman has the good sense to resort to extremely high quality design and printing methods to compliment the books contents. Okay, after all that frothy introduction, what's this book really about? It's about information design and "the heart of a good explanation". It presents the work of 24 individuals or groups of designers, faced with a "Tsunami" of data, whose passion "is to make the complex clear." The designs range from Alexander Tsiaras' computerized photographic medical visualizations and Clement Mok's web sites to David McCaulay's insightful freehand sketches and finished drawings. The presentation of the evolution of McCaulay's book, Underground, gave me the chills. I felt plugged into his brain as the concept develped into the finished book. This book, like it's contents, is about discovery. The "rediscovery" of Richard Curtis' work for USA Today and Don Moyer's work for the Steelcase furniture catalogs are recognized for the style and clarity they brought to those media. This is a book that I return to often both for it's sheer beauty and because each time I return, something new is revealed in it's illustrations. Based on my experience with this book, I picked up Wurman's Access travel guide to Boston before a recent trip. Another revelation and very a well presented visual guide. I'll check for Wurman's Access guides before taking any more trips. This book earns my highest recommendation (could you tell?)

Rating:
Summary: Richard Wurman's Information Architects is a visual delight
Review: This year, those of us who always gravitated to the picture books on library day have had two reasons to celebrate. Edward Tufte published his third magnificent work, Visual Explanations, and Richard Saul Wurman has favored us with this beautifully produced edition. First and foremost, this book is about sheer visual delight. The delight we get when we discover new facts and relationships revealed in graphic ways by the information architects presented. White text on black backgrounds notwithstanding, (See another review elsewhere in this section. I don''t find it difficult for my 45 year old eyes to follow) Wurman has the good sense to resort to extremely high quality design and printing methods to compliment the books contents. Okay, after all that frothy introduction, what's this book really about? It's about information design and "the heart of a good explanation". It presents the work of 24 individuals or groups of designers, faced with a "Tsunami" of data, whose passion "is to make the complex clear." The designs range from Alexander Tsiaras' computerized photographic medical visualizations and Clement Mok's web sites to David McCaulay's insightful freehand sketches and finished drawings. The presentation of the evolution of McCaulay's book, Underground, gave me the chills. I felt plugged into his brain as the concept develped into the finished book. This book, like it's contents, is about discovery. The "rediscovery" of Richard Curtis' work for USA Today and Don Moyer's work for the Steelcase furniture catalogs are recognized for the style and clarity they brought to those media. This is a book that I return to often both for it's sheer beauty and because each time I return, something new is revealed in it's illustrations. Based on my experience with this book, I picked up Wurman's Access travel guide to Boston before a recent trip. Another revelation and very a well presented visual guide. I'll check for Wurman's Access guides before taking any more trips. This book earns my highest recommendation (could you tell?)

Rating:
Summary: such dispare reviews
Review: Well, what can you expect of a book? And what can be expected of this book? In it I found a collection of some good responses (from press, to brochures, websites, interactive CDs, etc) to complex communicational problems, even when not all of them satisfy my aesthetic expectations, each work must be understood as "for who is it made", "in what media it will reproduce" and "what wishes to communicate". This book isn't a hip catalogue of what's cool, trendy or fashionable. The only short come of the book is that the comments are "just that" in most of the examples.