Not an urban myth

A colour-related factoid from Steven Fry's QI programme this weekend, which apparently is not an urban myth: during the cultural revolution in China it was thought that red, as the colour of progress, should mean 'go' in traffic lights, and green should mean stop. But they didn't all get changed over, so...

Colour blindness simulator

As a graphic designer I've often wondered whether to confess that I usually fail the classic Ishihara test for colour blindness. Perhaps that's why I prefer to call myself a typographer or information designer (we mostly work in black and white).

People tend to assume that colour blindness, or colour vision deficiency, is an on-off thing - that you just see grey, or that all colour blind people have the condition to the same degree. Mine is fairly mild, I maintain – it reveals itself in poorly lit shops where I pick out grey clothes and see they are labelled green (no, not lime green, but perhaps a dark olive or almost grey kind of green). And I am slower at picking raspberries than other people – I see the red against the green leaves but they just don't sing out to me as they obviously do to others.

Around 8% of men and 0.5% of women have some degree of colour blindness, mostly red-green. It is apparently genetic and carried by women, not men (somewhat ironic then to hear mothers criticising their sons' choice of clothes).

I found these christmas cracker facts on a useful website called colorblindor, run by Daniel Flück. It has a lot of resources and links – I was especially gratified to find his online RGB Anomaloscope test which reports on your degree of colour blindness (Ishihara just says you are or are not). Although all online tests are accompanied by a health warning about monitor settings, it seemed to work for me.

One useful feature is this colour vision deficiency simulator. You can upload an image and see what it looks like to someone with various colour deficiencies.

Spam tone of voice breakthrough

I get quite a few spam comments on this blog which I have to delete. But I really like the tone of voice in this one. I think I'd like to get letters like this from my over-serious bank.

"Good day, sun shines!
There have been times of hardship when I felt unhappy missing knowledge about opportunities of getting high yields on investments. I was a dump and downright stupid person.
I have never thought that there weren't any need in large starting capital.
Now, I'm happy and lucky, I begin take up real money.
It's all about how to select a proper companion who uses your money in a right way - that is incorporate it in real deals, parts and divides the profit with me."

Mind you, they wouldn't get my money.

Another clock

Thinking of Gene Z's chess set, this clock bought a few years ago from Habitat has a nice diagramming reference too. It's clever in a recursive kind of way, but not instructional in the way his chess set is.

Broccoli or pants: what's going on?

Paypal just asked me to fill in a questionnaire. This was the first screen - is this some kind of filter to check what browser I'm using, or to check if I'm not in an immature mood? Anyone know?

Gene Zelazny's diagrammatic chess set

Each piece on this chess set, designed by Gene Zelazny, is a diagram of how it moves.

Gene Zelazny is Director of Visual Communications for McKinsey & Company, and I corresponded with him for a while when they were a client a few years back in the mid-90s. He's been there for many years (he started in 1961 and I think he's still there), and has trained generations of management consultants to do those diagrams they all love - I saw a great collection he compiled of visual metaphors used in management communications, but I don't think he's published it anywhere (he has several books out on the design of charts and presentations).

As a sideline he designs wonderful chess sets - I mentioned to him Ken Garland's interest in board game design, and he sent me one of his diagrammatic sets to pass on to Ken (which I reluctantly did). Here's a link to his chess set gallery.

Figure-ground

Sorry about the quality of this image taken quickly on the move. It's a rare example of figure-ground problem in action. Perhaps you got it straight away but it took a little while for me to see the image here. I can't think why in retrospect - but, of course, once you've recognised something it's almost impossible to erase your understanding. That's why we need to test icons - the designer knows what they mean, and can never see them fresh.

Buildings and contents

If you've ever wondered what is covered by your buildings insurance rather than your contents insurance, here's a nice definition from Aviva's website:

"If you were to turn your home upside down, everything that fell out would be your contents, and what is left would be your buildings."

2.8% or 40%: how many people need large print?

A quote from the Arts Council's Get a Plan accessibility website:
"Did you know…40% of the population cannot easily read print if the type size is below 12 pt?"

That would mean 40% of the population couldn't read a newspaper, let alone the instructions on a packet of pills, or the small print on their car insurance.

Or the tests they use to measure literacy... wait a minute - could this explain the apparently low levels of literacy in the UK?

Well, only if the figure was true. The website owner is trying to trace the origin for me, but in the meantime here is a quote from an RNIB report:
 'The prevalence in those aged 16+ of at least S9 (difficulty reading ordinary newsprint) was 2.8%'  1998/99 Survey of the Needs and Lifestyles of Visually Impaired Adults. (RNIB/ONS 2000) quoted in Tate et al, The prevalence of visual impairment in the UK (RNIB 2005).

Newsprint is usually about 9pt. All figures for visual impairment get significantly worse for people aged 75+. In this survey only 14% of them, not 40%, reported problems reading newsprint.

Alphabet updated

A few years ago I was at a talk on transport design organised by the Design Business Association - one questioner asked why it was that the icons were the same in every station or airport you went to. It's so boring and uncreative, he said, and just a cop out by lazy designers.

The same goes for the alphabet too, and the practice of writing from left to right. It's lazy blogging, I know, but I thought you'd be interested in this item from The Onion I found on the Information Design Watch blog from Dynamic Diagrams (always very good).

More memorable security questions

I had an account with First Direct for a short while about ten years ago (I used to open all sorts of accounts just to collect documents that might be relevant to clients we were working for). Now I'm opening another account with them, it turns out they haven't forgotten - they asked me the answers to security questions I set up in around 1998. I couldn't remember my memorable date, my memorable address or my memorable name.

So now I have to choose two new questions to remember at various random points in the future where it will really matter (such as when I have lost my card, or can't log on). Who thinks these things up?

Apostrophes in road signs, and other petitions to the Prime Minister

The e-petitions section on the Number 10 website continues to flourish - one current petition is 'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to introduce a nationwide policy enforcing apostrophe use in road signs, applying to all local councils.'

There is still time to sign it, if this is something that keeps you awake at night. Or if you have ever got lost trying to find King's Road when all you can find is Kings Road, which is obviously somewhere else entirely.

The Conservative party recently announced plans to offer a £1m prize to the best use of social networking to harness the collective wisdom of the population in policy-making.

Judging by a good proportion of the e-petitions on the Number 10 website this is a slightly scary idea. Here's a small selection that caught my eye (mind you, I've included one that I would definitely sign):

• Stop the post office delivering mail to residents of the east riding of yorkshire improperly addressed.
• Ban the words 'Unlimited' in publications and/or advertisements by all companies where the service they offer is limited.
• Label lilies and bouquets containing lilies as deadly to cats.
• Bring Tony Blair to account over the war in Iraq.
• Stop The Council Destroying The Graves And Let Our Beloved Rest In Peace!.
• Force all foreigners to learn english when coming to the UK to migrate.
• Get us out of the EU and the sooner the better.
• Re-instate British dignity by banning political correctness against all things British!
• Ban Goverment TV information that use fear tactics.
• Stop the way tv licencing sends rude threatening and down right obnoxious letter to everybody based on the rather crass assumption we are all licence dodgers.

The strange websites of thought leaders

My mention of Robert de Beaugrande's website reminds me of some others I've encountered from prominent thinkers where there's a strange disconnect between the quality of the thinking and the visual design.

Here's a page from the website of Christopher Alexander, something of a hero of mine for his work on pattern languages. Perhaps I'm reacting like a modernist architect might to some of the vernacular structures he celebrates... I'll have to ponder that one.

Robert de Beaugrande

I picked up Robert de Beaugrande's Text production the other day, and thought I'd look a little more at the author. I've found his account of how writers deal with the problem of linearity (that is, the problem that language is linear, but what we want to talk about is not) really helpful in explaining the contribution of typography and layout. He doesn't make the connection himself, although he does apply his ideas to punctuation.

As readers we imagine what writers are like from their work. So visiting Robert's website I was surprised to find a highly individual, committed and even eccentric scholar - a pioneer of discourse linguistics but not an establishment academic. It's full of pictures of him on his travels around the world (and in company with distinguished linguists), and full of digs at Cambridge University Press, Microsoft, the Tories and other elitist groups he's taken against. Quite strange in many ways - but sincere and committed. He was obviously very deeply engaged in thinking about language, how it works in everyday life, how it should be studied.

He spent a lot of time in recent years scanning in his major publications, including the books, to make them freely available (and free) on his website.

I use the past tense because he died last year - I can't find a biography, just this short obituary, so I don't know how old he was. Not old enough, I suspect.

If I may be so bold

This is a nice demonstration of encroaching-boldness syndrome from Barclay's banking website. Everything is very important, except for 'This is the', 'of', 'for the' and 'They are presented in'.

The large print giveth, the small print taketh away

In my recent post about Tom Fishburne's cartoon I meant to say that he attributes the quote to the Tom Waits song 'Step right up'. Here it is:

Schiphol clock

Paul Mijksenaar has a new blog which as you'd expect is worth following (I've added it to the list on the right).

He's also launched some nice tee shirts and other things decorated with his Schiphol airport pictograms, and I'm very pleased with my new clock.

I spy with my little eye... branded language!

'I spy with my little eye... something's missing!'

So starts a letter I've just had from First Direct about our application to open an account. We're changing our bank account, in reaction to poor service at our previous award-winning customer-oriented bank. What was missing was information they hadn't previously asked for, so to my ear the headline is not only infantilising but blaming. Perhaps I hadn't said 'please' when I asked for a bank account.

In the same post we also got two identical welcome packs, confirming the account is open... so perhaps they don't need the other information after all. Those letters are headed 'Welcome to first direct (you'll notice the difference in minutes)'. I don't think they are ironically intended.

Now I'm not against branded language (for that is what this is) and when in professional practice used to sell it and do it. But you can't do it in an unthinking way, and every brand doesn't have to sound as chirpy as Innocent smoothies. And you have to be realistic - First Direct's tone of voice would be fine if modulated to match my likely mood (for example, with my gender, age and expressed unhappiness with previous bank, I clearly fall into the grumpy old man demographic). But their systems don't match the aspirations of their brand.

My spell checker is trying to hold a seminar

My spell checker just queried the word 'semiological'. It suggested it should be semi-logical. Very profound, I thought.

It reminds me of a paper Henri Henrion wrote many years ago, entitled 'Semiotics or semi-idiotics'.

The grocers/grocer's/grocers' apostrophe

At my public lecture the other day, a questioner raised the matter of the grocer's apostrophe - that's the apostrophe's in potato's, apple's and carrot's.

I said I wasn't particularly bothered as long as I get my potato's.

I was pleased to see support for my position on the BBC programme QI last week, where Stephen Fry said: "People have been ridiculing what has become known as the grocer's apostrophe since the eighteenth century. The Oxford Companion to the English Language notes that there was never a golden age in which the rules for the use of the possessive apostrophe in English were clear cut, and known, understood and followed by most educated people - never."

Have a look at this nice 'apostrophes for Africa' sketch with Omid Djalili playing the part of Lynne Truss, and Marcus Brigstocke on the grammar bullies on Room 101.

Another Tom Fishburne cartoon

I've mentioned Tom Fishburne's wonderful Brand Camp cartoons before - here's one I used in a public lecture I was asked to deliver in Reading last week. The point I wanted to make was that it's actually OK for there to be some small print - that is, for information to be layered so some of it is more prominent than the rest, or structured so you read different bits of it at different points in your journey to a decision, to new knowledge or whatever your goal is. It's actually considerate to the reader to reflect their priorities, or to guide them through the big picture. But the bad stuff shouldn't only live in the small print.

Instead, the large print structureth, and the small print filleth in the detail.

Ryme Intrinsica eat your heart out

I'm sitting in Glasgow station. I had no idea there were such great place names here, so far from Dorset.

Whifflet, Shotts, Nitshill, Troon, Crossmyloof, Giffnock, Hairmyres, Bogston and Fort Matilda.

Signaletics

I'm speaking at the Sign09 conference in Vienna next week, jointly organised by the International Institute for Information Design and the Sign Design Society. They've put together a terrific programme - unfortunately it is over 9 days, so I imagine few visitors will be able to go for the whole thing. I'm speaking about how wayfinding is taught on our MA course at Reading, and showing student work.

On just before me is Timothy Nissen, from Switzerland, who is speaking about 'Advanced Studies in Signaletics'. I'm intrigued by the term, which I haven't met before. Googling it gets you to a company doing intelligent signing, and also to this nice video.

Signaletics @ Yahoo! Video

Simples

Aleksandr from the car insurance ad is campaigning to have the word 'simples' added to the 'Dictionary of English Oxford'.

With irony-sensors switched off, I could point out that it is already there, since 'simple' is a noun as well as an adjective, with the plural form 'simples'. It is used in herbal medicine to describe a remedy with just one ingredient (thanks to Judy Delin's encyclopedic mind for that).

Apparently Aleksandr's usage is catching on - someone used it in an email to me the other day, hence this geekish hunt for origins.

It turns out that as with so much, Shakespeare was there first. This is Jacques in As You Like It:

'I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these; but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.'Act 4, Scene 1.

I'm quoting it to get in the wonderful 'scholar's melancholy, which is emulation'. They had the Research Excellence Framework in the old days too it seems.

Two notices

Two people gave me nice signs today for this blog.

James Mosley kindly sent me this photo he took sometime in the 70s – self-explanatory, I think, at least in more literate times. In case you can't read it, the top line says 'Artillery danger area'. I've been reading it aloud, trying out different accents.

Jenny came back from India with this one – we're thinking of putting it on our fence and pointing it at the students across the road from us.

Credit where it's due

After posting about the renaming of buildings at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, I remembered they were a client of our wayfinding team at Enterprise IG. Checking up I find it was indeed our trusty wayfinders, Colette Jeffrey and Alison Richings who were responsible. Uncommon sense, in fact.
Colette (under her former surname Miller) with David Lewis researched and wrote the standard work on wayfinding for healthcare sites for the NHS. She led wayfinding projects for around 25 hospitals, and is now to be found teaching at Birmingham City University.

Making names work for users

Wayfinding projects are not just about showing people the way – they are often about making the way easier to show. Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital last year renamed many of their buildings to provide a set of names that makes more sense for patients. For example, people used to have trouble finding New Guy's House, because it was not particularly new. This means that they've had to change not only signs and maps, but appointment letters too. They've also worked with the Royal Mail to ensure that their postal address is the street people enter from (it wasn't before).

Department names are also changing:

• 'Paediatrics' = 'Children's services'
• 'Ophthalmology' = 'Eye department'.
• 'Renal unit' = 'Kidney unit'
• 'Surgical appliances' = 'Patient appliances'.

 Hurray for common sense.

RIP Robert Barnett

I was saddened to hear of the death of Rob Barnett at the weekend. His books on forms design are exceptionally thorough and authoritative, full of the insight that comes from long experience. I didn't know him except through correspondence – when I found his books weren't available in the UK, he just sent me one as a gift.

He was seriously ill for a while but maintained his blog until quite recently. Here's a recent posting from it – note the reference to 'work simplification':

'Take a look at the following book cover. It's typical of the technology when I first started to design forms.

'I've recently been archiving a lot of old books in my business library and it's been interesting to see how far we've come in my lifetime.

'What I found surprising is that while the technological emphasis was on the use of the typewriter, some of the design philosophy was sound and are still ignored by many systems and IT people. Take this quote for example;

"It will be observed that the forms designer must apply a wide knowledge of the many requirements which go into the functional design of a form. Furthermore, form design is usually one part of the total result of skillful application of the principles of work simplification to clerical operations. Only in the simplest applications may one safely disregard the services of the experienced designer."

'Elsewhere the book says:

"The techniques of designing efficient business records are of such breadth and complexity as to require several years of specialized training before they are mastered."

'Something which still applies today if the forms analyst is to be fully equipped for the task.'

Rob Barnett, April 2009

 Rob's key books are Managing Business Forms and Forms for People. They are both available digitally.

Builders in my life

I don't mean to complain, but one of these photos is the view from my office, and one is the view from my house.

A bit off-topic and personal for this blog, I know, but my excuse is to point out the continuous set of labels that are being buried on top of 11,000 volt cables outside my office. They tell a future digger operator he is about to fry.

Saying what it is on the tin

Which one of these is a pink grapefruit? It's the one that doesn't say it is.

The poetry of Donald Rumsfeld

Slate some years back collected together the poetry of Donald Rumsfeld. There is no point in reproducing the famous 'Known unknowns' – it is too well known. But I thought this ode to clarity would suit this blog very well.

Clarity
I think what you'll find,
I think what you'll find is,
Whatever it is we do substantively,
There will be near-perfect clarity
As to what it is.

And it will be known,
And it will be known to the Congress,
And it will be known to you,
Probably before we decide it,
But it will be known.

Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

Tube map latest

The London tube map has long been an information design icon, so it's not surprising that the latest version has attracted controversy - the river is missing. It's just one of a set of changes that are intended to declutter the map... which is a good thing. Except the river is a critical landmark in London, and now London mayor Boris Johnson has ordered it reinstated.



I'm less worried about the river, and more concerned about the welfare of the famous animals on the underground. For example, the raven no longer works now the angle of the Kings Cross link has been changed. However, Euston Square now gets a big dot, and results in a decent canary to take the raven's place.

Little people run to the left

I think this sign (seen at the Eden Centre in Cornwall) means the nearest fire exit is to your right, but there is another one to your left. Unless the left hand exit is for the piskies.

Ladies THIS WAY

Usability in action. Not one but two extra signs have been required here to persuade the ladies that this really is the way in. What's gone wrong? At a guess, the height of the signs, the collision of too many signs (the baby, the shower... or is it a jellyfish), but perhaps the icons for men and women are just too similar. The two word sign 'Ladies toilet' forces the type to a smaller size, too.





Another thought - where do dads go to change their babies?

Monkey vs umbrella

What's going on here? Monkey (long arms + tail)?, umbrella?

More titles to choose from

While I'm twitting the Coventry Building Society (nice old-fashioned phrase, that - not the same as tweeting, although you could do both: you could tweet a twit on twitter) here's their choice of titles. They obviously do well with the RAF and the Royal Artillery, and not just the officers. But not as posh as Harrods etc, obviously.

Back to the next page

Filling in this form online, I wondered why I kept being sent to the previous page. Well, where would you click to move on?

A typographic pedantry test

Careful, dancers

See my other post on this...

Doing without signs

I mentioned before that architects don't seem to like signs. I was in a brand new office block last week, looking for the loos. There were labels on the doors themselves to distinguish the ladies from the gents, but nothing you could see side on or from more than a couple of metres. But I had no trouble finding them by instinct, or perhaps through deduction (they are often near the lifts as they both need the central service shaft). Of course the clincher was the cleaning trolley.

Beanfeast

Not only do signs fade – so do words. If you pass this sign in Highgate, and wonder why all the beans, let me save you the trouble. I looked it up, and a beanfeast is "an annual dinner or party given by an employer for employees". The bean bit may not be connected with beans, apparently, coming instead from the Latin bene.

Visual Voltage

Visual Voltage is an inspiring exhibition by a group of Swedish designers and engineers, of technology that helps people visualise their energy use in the home. We've just installed a meter that tells us how much energy we're using - you can switch the washing machine on and see the hourly cost shoot up. But it's not very compelling, and you forget about it quite quickly. These devices are more visceral - some of them actually work on an emotional level (such as the energy flower than blooms when you use less electricity). The powercord (below) looks like it's wasting energy, and you can't wait to switch it off. The energy clock maps your households usage, and shows you the times when you might need to change your habits.

The exhibition is touring at the moment, but there don't seem to be any UK dates.

Making Policy Public

Have a look at http://www.makingpolicypublic.net/, where the Centre for Urban Pedagogy publishes a regular series of foldout posters that explain public policy. They act as go-between to introduce campaigners to designers and the results are impressive. Here's one on predatory equity (businesses who buy up rent controlled buildings, then harrass tenants until they leave).


Top: folded out as a poster
Below: information spread

The hotel I didn't choose

Just back from a few days trying out my new boat on Ullswater. We stayed at a nice hotel, but not at the one in the picture. In reality, it is perfectly fine, and right next door to a place I could keep the boat. But I couldn't bring myself to book it. Great art, poor ad.


Top: The hotel

Below: The Munsters' house

Grumpy old man's thoughts on channel strategy

Companies who deal with the public have something called a channel strategy. One effect is that you can go online very easily to add stuff to your Sky TV package but not to cut it back. To do that you have to join a phone queue, press buttons, listen to the Four Seasons and finally talk to a specially trained crack salesperson who knows all your weaknesses and trains their finely honed neurolinguistic programming weapons on you until you relent.

I 'joined' Experian to get a copy of the file they had on me, but it seems I have to call them to cancel. They have a machine that read my email and spotted the word 'cancel'. So now I have written again, mis-spelling it - the automatic reply now says a human being will deal with it in a day or two. We'll see.

When we moved house recently I wrote to BT, but they ignored my letter and carried on charging me. I thought writing things down was the safest way, but apparently not. I called BT and was told 'der, we are a phone company you know'.

By the way, 'der' isn't a mis-spelling of 'dear' but my attempt at spelling that word teenagers say: derrh? de-ergh? Any suggestions?

Ghost signs

Hats off to the History of Advertising Trust (HAT) who are calling for contributions to a ghost signs archive. Ghost signs are those fading ads painted on old buildings. If you see any, they'd like them for their collection.

Two ideas for typefaces

Cooper Black Peeling: I'm sure the food is fine, but this sign isn't very fresh.




Stickynote Sans: Beth Shepherd sent me this - from a conversation by post-it notes with the office across the road.

Still transforming after all these years

Robin Kinross recently published The Transformer, an essay by Marie Neurath supplemented by his own writings on the subject. It is a beautifully produced and timely contribution - timely given the growing interest in the work of the Isotype Institute. But make sure you ask for 'The Transformer: principles of making Isotype charts', and not 'Transformers - all hail Megatron' or 'Transformers - revenge of the fallen'.

Many years ago when I worked for the Open University, we took the Isotype concept of the transformer role, and applied it in the new community education courses being developed. They were on topics such as parenting, health, and retirement. To help the specialist academics write in an accessible way, we set up processes that encouraged them to write in page units - each topic had to be a single page or a double-page spread. They had to write a series of linked stories, which had to be within a recommended word limit, and accompanied by a sketched layout of how they anticipated them appearing on the page. The idea was to stop academics from simply expounding on their topic, and to help them imagine a reader with a busy life who needed to support from the visible structure of text to help them read strategically and actively. So the transformer role was partly accomplished by people, and partly by processes.

Pam Shakespeare (now Professor of Practice Based Open Learning) gave her inaugural lecture at the OU last week, and I went over to hear her. I hadn't previously realised that the transformer idea had made any kind of lasting impact, but it seems to have. A video of her lecture is online at http://stadium.open.ac.uk/berrill/ (it starts about 6 minutes into the video).

No fun

More notices

I suppose 'deep' is a relative term.



I think if there really are quicksands here, we need a greater sense of alarm in this notice. Both signs seen along the Thames Path in Gloucestershire last week.

Banksy versus Bristol Museum

I haven't had so much fun in an art show for years (well, ever...). There is a lot to pick out, but in the interest of relevance to this blog, here's a nice reference to small print.

Our MA students

Our MA students have finished the practical part of their course (dissertation still to come) and their work has been on display this week. They have been a delight to work with, and their work is terrific. Here they are having their photo taken, and striking suitably creative poses.

Our forms design portfolio

Well, now the MPs' exes have been published and you can see our work in its full glory - the blacked out bits spoil it a little, but still...

MPs' expenses: our small part in their downfall

I remembered the other day that we (Information Design Unit, my former company) once had the job of designing the House of Commons expenses forms. The job went on for a long long time, as different wordings were tried and rejected. Obviously I would be sent to the tower for showing them (and I don't know which version, if any, was finally used), but it seems OK to mention that the declaration closely reflects the HMRC rules on taxation of expenses: "I confirm that I incurred these costs wholly, exclusively and necessarily... for the purpose of performing my duties as a Member of Parliament". I would say that is pretty clear.

Words in the street

Thanks to the Lancaster Literacy Research Centre for this link.

Branding oxymoron

The new kettle in our department is all wrong. A Frigidaire is a fridge. It has to be cold.

Oddly enough, I kept trying to turn it on by pressing the switch down (I think every other kettle works that way), but you had to pull it up. I thought it was because Frigidaire is an American brand and their light switches work the opposite way to ours (up is on). Paul Luna had a more ingenious idea - if Frigidaires normally get cold when you switch them on (ie, push the switch down), to get them to be hot you had to do the opposite (ie, pull the switch up).

Waiting for...

Perhaps I’ve seen it a million times before, but I’ve only recently noticed this sign at Liskeard station. I love the icon. You could set a short story contest around it.

"Waiting for the one o'clock train, now approaching Saltash, St Germans next, Jim wonders (proudly sitting in his union jack flares, head curiously detached) how he will lift his heavy well-strapped case, armless as he is. "

Easy Read not easyRead

A quick quiz. What is Easy Read?

1. Easy-Read is an ergonomic book holder that makes it easy to hold a book and turn the pages.

2. EasyRead is an application that lets you enlarge web pages to make them easier to read.

3. Easyread is a system for teaching dyslexic children

4. Easy Read is a way to write simply for people with learning difficulties, using pictures in support of clear language.

Hint - it’s all in the capitalisation. And it’s nothing to do with Stelios. That would be easyRead.

Two pictures of the ground

No information design in this post - just a couple of photos of the ground. After burying a new sewer pipe, the contractors have carefully restored the double-yellow no parking lines in our car park, in spite of the fact the rest of the line is completely worn away.

After building this new ramp, someone walked through the wet cement leaving big boot marks. I love they way they have been carefully filled using cement of a different colour. Now there’s no missing them.

Cranks and idiots

Since I am on a religious theme, these two books found themselves juxtaposed on my bookshelf. One is now in the kitchen where it belongs.

Making reading digestible

Still on a scriptural theme... the Reader's Digest Bible cuts out the ‘boring bits’ – the genealogies or details of the Old Testament law – in an effort to make it less of a weariness of the flesh. But quite often when you look at other translations, the boring bits are actually graphically signalled, helping people read strategically (ie, helping them skip those parts).


























In this page from Numbers, I've highlighted the section of the RD Bible that is the equivalent of a spread from an edition of the NIV (I designed the one shown some years ago for Hodder & Stoughton). The sections shaded pink are the ones left out of the RD version – I hope the image is clear enough to see that the list of tribes is spaced and indented in a way that makes it easy for the reader to simply skip over, noting the authenticity of the historical record (the main function of that passage for the modern reader). The spacing was not introduced by me but by the scholars and theologians responsible for the translation.
























On another occasion I tried to take an even more explicit information design approach to Bible design. The Contemporary English Version is translated to be easier for people without a religious background to understand – it avoids theological terms, for example. I tried to make it look less bibly and to use genre cues to help readers approach it in a more strategic way. I could not avoid double columns (for space reasons) but I was able to use single column for poetry, so the line endings would be clearer. I used a three column ‘fine print’ approach for the boring bits, and bold headings.

Thought for the day

Paul Luna twitters on a scriptural theme:

“God as usability guru? ‘We have never sent a messenger who did not use his own people’s language to make things clear for them’ Qur’an 14:4”

I counter with Ecclesiastes 12:12: ‘Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.’

Oddly worded no smoking sign

My compulsion to whip out my iPhone in toilets continues - this one from a National Express train.

I suppose it is entirely reasonable that if I watch someone smoking in the loo, they can complain to the train guard.

I'll have to stop these toilet posts - Paul Luna's talking about the Oxford Literary Festival in his blog this week, and I'm lowering the tone.

Another toilet sign

I like the thoroughness of this sign. When you warn me about hot water, I want to know where it's likely to come at me from.



Location: Royal Station Hotel, Newcastle

Doing what it says on the tin

We all like things that do what they say on the tin. I also like things that say on the tin what they do. Like these shop signs: no guesswork required (unless you're too young to know what a gramophone is).

Locations: the wool shop is in Liskeard, and the radio shop is in Jedburgh.

Information design anthem: new contender

Radio Berkshire was in our department yesterday, interviewing staff and students. I was called back later in the day to comment on the Local Government Association's call to ban the use of jargon by local councils. Actually, their list was a little weak - 'coterminous' is translated as 'singing from the same hymn sheet'. That's not what it is, and even if it was, it's not so far from the kind of stuff they're trying to ban.

I played the programme back on iPlayer today, and realised that I hadn't spotted the music Radio Berkshire put on just before the spot on jargon: the Animals, 'Don't let me be misunderstood'.

Google street view melts car

Google has launched street view in the UK. I love the side effects of their car-mounted cameras - this car looks like it's programmed Australia into its satnav.

Musical forms

Following an earlier post about information design in rock, John Willmer tells me he reckons the only musical arrangement of a government form is Frank Zappa's wonderful 'Welcome to the United States' from the album The Yellow Shark. Do you know otherwise?

I suppose you could argue that Rowan Atkinson's schoolmaster is a performance of a bureaucratic process, but while perfectly timed it's not musical.

Dear Lord Customer

I bought a shirt from the Boden catalogue at the weekend, and was flattered to be offered the choice of not just Mr or Ms in front of my name, but any number of aristocratic or military titles, including Field Marshall Lord. A couple of minutes with Google suggests to me that there may only be one of these extant, and only a handful at most... and that there is one person with Field Marshal the Rt Hon Lord in front of his name. Unfortunately he is unable to look forward to a delivery of underpants with his full title on the label.

He is also unable to shop with full dignity at Fortnum & Mason (the green one below) or Harrods (the yellow one). Sure enough, they are expecting the posh set, but I fear they are only scratching the surface. I remember a car insurance website years ago that included 'Chief', 'Mother Superior' and 'His Holiness' (I may have made up that last one, but only just).


I've been trying to work out the organising principle of the Harrods list - is it alphabetical, or based on protocol? I think it may be 'cast in order of appearance' which explains why the Wing Commander has somehow got between the Lord and his Lady.

school shcool

The Times recently spotted spelling mistakes in the blog published by Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, and their website features a set of 'top twenty spelling mistakes on signs around the world'. Some are the usual homophone traps ('boarder', instead of 'border') from organisations who should know better, but most are just typos or spelling mistakes on hand written notices. The criticism seems a little picky, but I did like this one. I suspect it might be one of those phonetic spelling errors I've mentioned before. I think this one was written by that Dutch guy from the Grolsch ads. Or perhaps it is a nifty slogan from Jim Knight's department, trying to show that school can be cool.

Very good language blog

We've had snow in the UK this week (it's become relatively unusual), and the linguist Geoffrey Pullum was on the radio this morning explaining why it is not true that eskimos have 25 words for snow. He has been fighting this urban myth for many years now, and his essay 'The great Eskimo vocabulary hoax' is a good read, as is all his stuff.

Googling him to find the link to it, I discovered the brilliant blog Language Log. He has a range of co-contributors including Geoff Nunberg, another entertaining and insightful writer on language. Meeting GN at a conference a few years back I confused him with GP, and told how much I'd enjoyed his eskimo stuff. He wasn't amused and I was given to understand I had committed lèse-majesté - evidently it happens all the time. But looking at some of his writings today I realise that Nunberg is indeed the alpha Geoff. Here's a sample which includes a nice new distinction I plan to quote a lot, between 'typos' and 'thinkos'.

Confessions of a distracted geek

I am very proud of myself - I just found the Arial vs Helvetica quiz and scored 9 out of 10. Or should I be ashamed because I got one wrong? There's no feedback so I don't which one.

The Helvetica film is a wonderful celebration of typography. I enjoyed it hugely until I realised that it was never going to end, and that they were never going to stop the examples and the interviews. So I left early and never found out who dunnit. That's me and typographic geekery all over - I used to be a true typographic geek but got distracted.

The power of words

The power of words was in the news this week, with Carol Thatcher's suspension from the BBC for using offensive racial language... well, the word Golliwog. Comments left on news websites were split between those who get it that the word is offensive, and those who don't. Words are offensive if they cause offense, and I'm most convinced (and moved) by the comments from people who were taunted with the name as children - such as the Independent's Ava Vidal.

Browsing in a second-hand bookshop this weekend I chanced upon what appears to be a revisionist version of a well known 1940s children's book by Robert Tredinnick.

More nice graffiti

Cara Gerard sent me this.

and a link to more Geeky Graffiti.

I curse thee, Trainline

I like The Trainline, a booking site for rail tickets. But every time I use them I get fooled by the 'Continue' button on the last screen. It takes you to a 'partner website' - ie, an advertiser who wants to sign you up to something.

I don't use The Trainline often enough to remember that this is a con... and it gets me every time.

I hope they're making a little money out of it as compensation for the loss of customer trust. This kind of functional impersonation is pretty close to phishing.

Patronising logo

Adult functional literacy is a big issue, and there is a very long tradition of trying not to patronise adults by giving them children's reading primers. The 'On the move' BBC series was a pioneer of this as long ago as the 1970s.

You can find adult literacy tests to practice online, but just look at where you find them:

Gourmet stroop test

Rummaging through my student son's larder I discovered the bottle on the right. If you're not from the UK you won't know that the Tesco Value range consists of absurdly cheap but basically OK basics - things like bread, beans and biscuits. Not Balsamic Vinegar Of Modena. That comes in posh bottles like the one on the left.

Now I have heard that the Value range is largely bought by the middle classes - the genuinely needy target market being too proud to be seen to be buying the cheapest. May or may not be true, but perhaps it explains the incursion of this resoundingly middle class vinegar.

Non ironic version

To be fair, here's a new version of the email I just posted, that arrived about an hour after the other one.

You can read about the new journal here: PJIM.

New journal on data visualisation

Just received this email about a new journal on information mapping and data visualisation. Ironic, eh?

Actually it looks like a very interesting journal and I plan to follow this up. But it's just as well Parsons is focusing on visual stuff, not verbal - how's this for a noun phrase: 'a one-of-a-kind Research, Development, and Professional Services facility leveraging Knowledge Visualization'.

This should appeal to our vicious, semi-criminal customers

Most organisations segment their customers in some way, so they can target products or communications at each group. They give names to the segments like 'empty nesters', 'cash-strapped families', 'young trendsetters' and so on. Some of these verge on the pejorative - like the one I've just seen that prompted this post, that I won't quote because I'm working with the organisation concerned at the moment. Sometimes there are informal usages within organisations - at one mobile phone company I worked with, anonymous pay-as-you-go customers who did not register their accounts were known as 'crims' or 'dealers'.








Oddly enough, I'd start writing this post when I thought I'd see what Paul Luna had put up on his Luna's café blog recently - he showed this legend from one of Charles Booth's London maps - part of his Life and labour of the people of London survey(1886–1903).

Photo of tree

Nothing to do with the topic of this blog, I know, but around the corner from the last photo was this Christmas tree. It appears to have been put out for the bin men, but left behind when the rubbish was collected because it blends in so well with the other trees in the street.

The King Canute signage awards, 2009: entry 2

In case it's not obvious, on the left someone has written 'Pls don't urinate here'. On the right someone else has helpfully drawn a urinal on the wall (Eagle Court, Farringdon).

The King Canute signage awards, 2009: entry 1

Obviously these no smoking signs will prevent the smoke from passers-by reaching the folk sat in the chairs at this open air coffee stand in Broad Street, Reading.

Great new book for forms lovers

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Borries Schwesinger, author of what looks like a landmark book on forms design, Formulare Gestalten. I say 'looks like' because I don't read German, but the scope of the book is visible from the extensive examples, both historical and modern, and by its comprehensive assemblies of graphic styles. It is beautifully produced, and is already attracting awards. Borries is currently working on an English language version, and I'm looking forward to it.

Chance encounter

One of the joys of computer search is when it throws up strange stuff that seems much more interesting than the topic you are concerned with. Best one today is 'Sword swallowing and its side effects', an article in the British Medical Journal. I particularly like its reference to a sympton known as a 'sword throat'. Recovering from flu, I reckon that's what I have right now.

I'm a little puzzled about how this article appeared in my search for research on the effectiveness of financial advice. Perhaps sword swallowing and financial advice are both forms of trickery and illusion.

The latest high tech

There's a great collection of scanned Radio Shack catalogues here. Thanks to Collin McDougall for the link. I enjoyed flicking through them, and found myself wanting to order the latest tape recorder. We've come a long way since 1961, but it was just as exciting in those days, with hifi and tape recording still quite recently introduced.

One hundred years of progress

I've found a box of prehistoric documents, including a talk I gave to the ISTC in 1976. It was a little depressing reading it again, to find how little my ideas have progressed in 30 years. But it was nice to find these examples of information design from railway manuals from 1855 and 1972 (from Michael Macdonald-Ross's collection). One of them is very usable – pocket sized, with simple language, and accessible summaries in the margin. Progress?

Here's a scan of the talk, in case anyone's interested.

Happy Christmas

Thanks to Paul Matson for sending me this (from Stansted Airport). Happy Christmas everyone.

Disappointing

Graphic designers have a noble role to play in news communication through diagramming and graphic explanation. But they seem to have turned instead to the naff branding of news stories. Channel 4's graphic treatment of the Mumbai terrorism was breathtakingly crass, with its fake hindi curry house logo.

Agreeable?

I've asked a number of conference audiences if anyone has ever read the small print you get shown when you install software. One person has put their hand up, out of several hundred people. I don't particularly mind saying I agree with something I haven't read, but I don't feel comfortable saying I have read it, and even less comfortable saying I have 'read and understood' it. After all, I thought I'd read and understood my chemistry O level textbook, but look what happened.

I propose an alternative:

You can't be too careful

Sign seen at a building site next to Farringdon tube station. I think they've got most things covered, except perhaps 'may contain nuts'.

Quite big

A while ago I posted a note about the Michelin guides' francocentric use of the Eiffel Tower as a unit of comparative height. Now I've found a copy of their New York guide to illustrate the point. The usual point of these pictures is to impress you with the size of the new object, as compared with the known one. In this case we think 'wow, I didn't realise the Eiffel Tower was so big'. I think this is something approaching bad manners in a guide book - rather like dining with friends, and complimenting them that the meal was slightly better that the one you cooked yourself that day for lunch.

A life explained

Thanks to Paul Luna for showing me this homage to infographics. It's by the French agency H5 (I loved their other stuff too - have a look at 'wuz', which has a great ending).



Since I first posted this, the link has been removed from Youtube, but you can see it on the H5 website - go to Film/Clip/Royksopp.

And I've just been told (thanks, Brian) you can download it on iTunes (seach for 'Remind me').

Another fading sign

Passing this sign, with the red worn away through years of shouting danger, I saw someone lighting a cigarette. Now that people can only smoke outside public buildings, I suppose they might expect there to be permissive signs to mirror the prohibitive ones on the door.



Turning the corner, though, this newer sign makes it very clear why lighting up wasn't such a good idea, and certainly to be avoided while naked.

Slippery jazz hands man

I love the jazz hands on this stick man.

For years I was an embarrassment on family holidays by constantly stopping to take photos of whatever it was we were designing at the time: airport signs or payphone user instructions were favourites. So it was nice to get this photo sent to my phone by my son Alex, overcome by a sad genetic urge to snap a sign for the first time. It's only a matter of time before he inherits my baldness too.

News graphics

I recently made the acquaintance of Max Gadney - he's responsible for news graphics at the BBC (or at least I think he may have moved on from that role as, googling him, I find his very information-rich job title is Channel Editor, BBC Two & BBC Four, Vision Multi-Platform team). As a sideline he creates terrific information graphics for World War II magazine, like this one.


Have a look at his website.

Max also told me about the Society for News Design.

The book - tech support

This wonderful YouTube clip from a Norwegian comedy show was doing the rounds a year ago or so, but in case you missed it...

Not fade away

My photo flatters the legibility of this slowly fading message outside Barts Hospital in London.

A worry for the literal minded

This sign I found in a Starbucks loo is a little worrying for the literal-minded... not to say anally retentive.

Stop, stop, please stop

Martin Evans has sent me this link to a nice video: what happens when marketers brief an agency to design the stop sign.