Picture of Rob Waller

I am an information designer with a wide experience of practice, research, writing and teaching. I'm retired now, but still active in consultancy and research, and attached to the University of Leeds School of Design in an honorary capacity. I am particularly concerned with ways to make reading easier for people who struggle with it, and with helping organisations develop the skills and systems they need to communicate complex information to a wide audience. My career has included roles in academia and design practice.

You can check me out on LinkedIn, or a fuller CV is downloadable here.

Current roles and activities‍

I am Visiting Professor with the University of Leeds School of Design. I still take on occasional consultancy work, and I teach and run workshops for design students – in recent years I've been at the Royal College of Art, Brunel University, UCA Epsom, Aalto University (Finland), Danube University Krems (Austria), Tampere University (Finland) and the Academy of Fine Arts, Katowice (Poland).

My background

I studied and later taught typography and graphic communication at the University of Reading, with a doctorate for work on the relationship between typography and language. My academic career has included research into learning from text for the Open University, founding and editing Information Design Journal, organising many conferences, and chairing the Information Design Association.

In 1988 I started Information Design Unit and, with business partner David Lewis, grew it to become the UK's largest information design agency. It was acquired by WPP plc in 2001, and become part of the multidisciplinary branding agency Enterprise IG – one of the world's largest, with over 20 offices.

Recent events

I contributed a piece to the latest issue of the Clarity Journal, on the relationship between plain language and information design. And there's an interview with me about the Information Design Summer School in a recent issue of  Communicator.

3-4 December 2024: I led a discussion panel on contract design, at the online Academic Symposium on Reimagining Contracts for Evolving Supply Chains, organized by WorldCC Foundation.

September 2024: We ran the online  Information Design Summer School, with 24 people from around the world.

18-19 January 2024: I was at Tampere University, Finland, speaking at a conference on legal communications with the Sarjis research group - they specialise in comic contracts are developing a very interesting programme of research in legal design.

7 December 2023:  I gave a talk as part of the European Commission’s Clear Writing Week,  about how information design works together with plain language. It was followed a few days later by a training session for some of their editors. It's organised by the Directorate-General of Translation.

4 December 2023: I chaired a discussion panel at the World CC Academic Symposium, about design methods for clear business contracts.

August-October 2023: I chaired the public sector documents judging panel for New Zealand's Plain Language Awards again.

18-22 September 2023: We (Karel van der Waarde, Veronika Egger and I) led a week-long course in Universal Design (inclusive design) for the staff of the Academy of Fine Arts, Katowice, Poland.

12-13 June 2023: I was in Brussels for a meeting of the ISO group drafting the Plain Language Standard. The main standard has just been published, and I'm helping to draft a new Part on document design.

23-24 May 2023: The Information Design Summer School moved to Vienna this year, with a three-day workshop just before the Vision Plus XIX conference organised by the International Institute for Information Design.

22 February 2023: I took part in Hannele Korhonen's series of online discussions: Legal Design Thinking IRL (I looked this up and it stands for In Real Life). You can watch it on her Lawyers Design School website if you're interested.

7-8 December 2022: I chaired a discussion panel on workshop at the WorldCC Foundation Academic Symposium on 'Proactive contract design for better business and social outcomes'. It relates to my work on legal information design that makes contracts and business relationships clearer.

6 December 2022: I gave a talk for the European Commission’s Directorate-General of Translation. Every year they run a Clear Writing Week, and I talked about how information design works together with plain language. There is a recording on Vimeo.

24 November 2022: I was at Universiteit Utrecht as part of an expert panel to comment on an interesting research project called ‘Empowering Consumers through Intelligible Contracts in the New Energy Era’.

27 October 2022: The winners of New Zealand's Plain Language Awards were announced. I've been one of the judges for a number of years now, and always enjoy their very thorough process.

19 October 2022: I gave a talk about my career and approach, for students at my old department at the University of Reading, in one of their Baseline Shift seminars. There is a recording on Vimeo.

13 September 2022. I presented a webinar for the European Association of Science Editors on Layering: a design solution for multiple audiences.