Reinventing My Cortex
May 2, 2007 1:12 PM Subscribe
DesignFilter. Help me poke and prod my nondesigner's mind to consider new ways to present that hackneyed standby of the elementary school social studies textbook, the timeline. Too much information inside.
Through through a combination of happenstance and sheer luck, I've been asked to be a part of a book project headed up by a Very Big Deal Novelist. It will feature contributions from a panoply of Very Big Deal dTitans of Culture and will be forged and burnished into something visually extraordinary by a Very Big Deal Designer. As a historian by training, my little corner of the project will be to compose a set of timelines related to various elements of the book. The timelines will run throughout its pages, making a journey through the text alongside the reader.
The project hangs upon a very tight link between form and content. So while the project is in the early stages, and the VBDDesigner is waiting for more material to work with before coming up with formal comps, I suggested that given this close relationship between text and visual presentation it might make sense to collaborate from the get-go, since design considerations will inform how I select and summarize events for the timelines.
We're conference calling sometime later this week. I am nervous. To put it mildly. Actually, to massively understate the case.
I don't have any illusions about my talents and limitations in this department, particularly given that I'm working with someone who is breathtakingly talented and accomplished. In other words, I know that the VBDD will have a) the ultimate say and b) far better ideas than I will. And I also know very little about how this whole process works, as far as steps and sequence and parameters etc. go. But I want to get a booster shot to think about different ways to present the information in the timelines and, more broadly, to have a sense of what world the VBDD inhabits and what sorts of places his mind can go.
While my bailiwick here is relatively small, it will assert a presence throughout the book and, in its own way, provide visual and intellectual structure for it. Another part of the background check that's looming rather large right now is that I am A Far Cry From Anything Resembling a Big Deal, and I also happen to be at a professional impasse which has me rooting around for what I might look like in Version 2.0. And so despite its modest scope, I'd very much like to try to take this opportunity to kick ass and present my ideas and myself as something and someone worth taking seriously (vis a vis this project and perhaps in the Department of Future Gainful Employment).
I'm all aflutter at the change to challenge myself to work with a new kind of conceptual framework, and to radically rethink how I'd normally go about piecing information together using a different set of considerations for how to tell a story and how to think about representing time. But as anyone who has languished in grad school knows, disciplinary training often has the unfortunate effect of refining one's analytical skills by placing constraints upon them. It strengthens certain muscles while atrophying others, and this can impair one's ability to think broadly and creatively- or, as a management self-help book for sale in an airport bookstore might put it, "outside of the box."
So while I like being an initiate into the cult of Clio, but I need some help making myself think in an alternate language. Historians know how to do certain things very well- such as find, filter, and make sense out of large bodies of complex information. I think this is part of what designers do, but by tackling different kinds of problems through different means. So I'd like to get started by doing some thinking about how considerations of design might inform and shape my collection and presentation of the information I'm going to track down.
I have already lit candles in front of my hastily assembled Edward Tufte shrine, but suspect that the design junkies in this crowd have some favorite bookmarks on their browser that might help me out. I'm thinking of the timeline equivalents of this but with data points as events rather than dead French soldiers or the gingerbread supply on the Salyut 6. I'm thinking of and hoping for images along the lines of Cabinet's history of timelines . Book titles- for models history-wise and design-wise- very much welcome, since I'm going to be spending a considerable amount of time in a nicely appointed university library with a decent design collection.
As always, my deepest thanks in advance for the collective wisdom.
Through through a combination of happenstance and sheer luck, I've been asked to be a part of a book project headed up by a Very Big Deal Novelist. It will feature contributions from a panoply of Very Big Deal dTitans of Culture and will be forged and burnished into something visually extraordinary by a Very Big Deal Designer. As a historian by training, my little corner of the project will be to compose a set of timelines related to various elements of the book. The timelines will run throughout its pages, making a journey through the text alongside the reader.
The project hangs upon a very tight link between form and content. So while the project is in the early stages, and the VBDDesigner is waiting for more material to work with before coming up with formal comps, I suggested that given this close relationship between text and visual presentation it might make sense to collaborate from the get-go, since design considerations will inform how I select and summarize events for the timelines.
We're conference calling sometime later this week. I am nervous. To put it mildly. Actually, to massively understate the case.
I don't have any illusions about my talents and limitations in this department, particularly given that I'm working with someone who is breathtakingly talented and accomplished. In other words, I know that the VBDD will have a) the ultimate say and b) far better ideas than I will. And I also know very little about how this whole process works, as far as steps and sequence and parameters etc. go. But I want to get a booster shot to think about different ways to present the information in the timelines and, more broadly, to have a sense of what world the VBDD inhabits and what sorts of places his mind can go.
While my bailiwick here is relatively small, it will assert a presence throughout the book and, in its own way, provide visual and intellectual structure for it. Another part of the background check that's looming rather large right now is that I am A Far Cry From Anything Resembling a Big Deal, and I also happen to be at a professional impasse which has me rooting around for what I might look like in Version 2.0. And so despite its modest scope, I'd very much like to try to take this opportunity to kick ass and present my ideas and myself as something and someone worth taking seriously (vis a vis this project and perhaps in the Department of Future Gainful Employment).
I'm all aflutter at the change to challenge myself to work with a new kind of conceptual framework, and to radically rethink how I'd normally go about piecing information together using a different set of considerations for how to tell a story and how to think about representing time. But as anyone who has languished in grad school knows, disciplinary training often has the unfortunate effect of refining one's analytical skills by placing constraints upon them. It strengthens certain muscles while atrophying others, and this can impair one's ability to think broadly and creatively- or, as a management self-help book for sale in an airport bookstore might put it, "outside of the box."
So while I like being an initiate into the cult of Clio, but I need some help making myself think in an alternate language. Historians know how to do certain things very well- such as find, filter, and make sense out of large bodies of complex information. I think this is part of what designers do, but by tackling different kinds of problems through different means. So I'd like to get started by doing some thinking about how considerations of design might inform and shape my collection and presentation of the information I'm going to track down.
I have already lit candles in front of my hastily assembled Edward Tufte shrine, but suspect that the design junkies in this crowd have some favorite bookmarks on their browser that might help me out. I'm thinking of the timeline equivalents of this but with data points as events rather than dead French soldiers or the gingerbread supply on the Salyut 6. I'm thinking of and hoping for images along the lines of Cabinet's history of timelines . Book titles- for models history-wise and design-wise- very much welcome, since I'm going to be spending a considerable amount of time in a nicely appointed university library with a decent design collection.
As always, my deepest thanks in advance for the collective wisdom.
Wow. I can tell you're a writer. But you've answered your own question.
I suggested that given this close relationship between text and visual presentation it might make sense to collaborate from the get-go, since design considerations will inform how I select and summarize events for the timelines.
Designers (information architects, whatever) engage in things called brainstorms in which they are very used to exchanging ideas with peers. It sounds like your upcoming conference call is exactly that. You've already taken the correct steps to get a general overview of the visual language of timelines. Now relax and simply collaborate with other talented people.
posted by quadog at 1:42 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
I suggested that given this close relationship between text and visual presentation it might make sense to collaborate from the get-go, since design considerations will inform how I select and summarize events for the timelines.
Designers (information architects, whatever) engage in things called brainstorms in which they are very used to exchanging ideas with peers. It sounds like your upcoming conference call is exactly that. You've already taken the correct steps to get a general overview of the visual language of timelines. Now relax and simply collaborate with other talented people.
posted by quadog at 1:42 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
some favorite bookmarks on their browser that might help me out.
Have you seen infosthetics?
posted by juv3nal at 1:44 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
Have you seen infosthetics?
posted by juv3nal at 1:44 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
please, please tell me Jon Stewart is writing a history of the world textbook. Pretty please.
posted by jourman2 at 1:52 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by jourman2 at 1:52 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
(These might be too basic for you & are slightly more web design than design orientated.)
- The Non-Designer's Design Book
- The Design of Everyday Things
- Ambient Findability by O'Reilly might be of interest in terms of time/path/etc, but not of immediate use, or more generally maybe something on wayfinding (article by author on the topic)
posted by ejaned8 at 2:19 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
- The Non-Designer's Design Book
- The Design of Everyday Things
- Ambient Findability by O'Reilly might be of interest in terms of time/path/etc, but not of immediate use, or more generally maybe something on wayfinding (article by author on the topic)
posted by ejaned8 at 2:19 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
Also, core 77 has a list of books that might be worth looking at. (Not a graphic designer, but might be of interest).
posted by ejaned8 at 2:26 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by ejaned8 at 2:26 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
juv3nal
Have you seen infosthetics?
Another good one is "Visual Complexity"
posted by jmnugent at 2:32 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
Have you seen infosthetics?
Another good one is "Visual Complexity"
posted by jmnugent at 2:32 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: please, please tell me Jon Stewart is writing a history of the world textbook. Pretty please.
Oh, would that it were. Sadly, substantially less entertaining. It's probably for the best, since were I to find myself in the presence of Jon Stewart- one of the few celebrities I actually give a rat's ass about- I'd probably go beyond mere low-grade, banal hysterical self-deprecating nervousness into adult diaper status.
They haven't made me sign a non-disclosure agreement, but to err on the side of discretion: it will be a avant-garde coffee table book/compendium of social commentary/ritual text. Yes, that's a lot for one volume. Tear-out coupons for various snack foods and beauty products in the back.
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 4:29 PM on May 2, 2007
Oh, would that it were. Sadly, substantially less entertaining. It's probably for the best, since were I to find myself in the presence of Jon Stewart- one of the few celebrities I actually give a rat's ass about- I'd probably go beyond mere low-grade, banal hysterical self-deprecating nervousness into adult diaper status.
They haven't made me sign a non-disclosure agreement, but to err on the side of discretion: it will be a avant-garde coffee table book/compendium of social commentary/ritual text. Yes, that's a lot for one volume. Tear-out coupons for various snack foods and beauty products in the back.
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 4:29 PM on May 2, 2007
Response by poster: Does the timeline have to sync-up with the action on the pages? That is...if event X is being discussed on page 203, then the timeline on that page should also match that period.
Or, while the timeline relates to the text, can it exist as its own entity, flowing as it needs throughout the book?
The content of two out of the three timelines- all of which will run throughout the book- will be completely independent of the action on the pages, marking and choreographing a sequence of events outside of what transpires in the book per se. The third, however, will map where one is in the book- it will be almost be a timeline for the book itself. So there are a few different relationships between the timelines and the book's content at play here, and accordingly, different options for presentation.
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 4:34 PM on May 2, 2007
Or, while the timeline relates to the text, can it exist as its own entity, flowing as it needs throughout the book?
The content of two out of the three timelines- all of which will run throughout the book- will be completely independent of the action on the pages, marking and choreographing a sequence of events outside of what transpires in the book per se. The third, however, will map where one is in the book- it will be almost be a timeline for the book itself. So there are a few different relationships between the timelines and the book's content at play here, and accordingly, different options for presentation.
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 4:34 PM on May 2, 2007
There are two possibilities here. Either your VBDD turns out to be inspiring and fun to work with and expands your horizons and brings out the best in you just by proximity, in which case they are the Very Big Real Deal, or they turn out to be up themselves and make you feel like crap to boost their own inflated ego, nick all your ideas and use them unattributed in the book - in which case you'll have a harmful illusion dispelled. Either way, you win! Relax and enjoy.
posted by flabdablet at 5:24 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by flabdablet at 5:24 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
Consider what the designer is likely to ask you:
- How many events do we need to make a good timeline?
- What makes timelines work well for you? Students you've met?
Actually, the designer may or may not ask you these things, but you can reflect on the experience you have in this field generally and be prepared to offer information if he/she asks for it.
Consider also what you will ask the designer, or rather, what you need to learn from the meeting - how much text are you likely to be able to contribute for each event (for example). Will you write the text?
I really have no idea about this sort of thing, I'm just suggesting things you could think about in an effort to get focused and calmer. Also, if someone corrects me here, it could be even more helpful to you.
posted by amtho at 7:49 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
- How many events do we need to make a good timeline?
- What makes timelines work well for you? Students you've met?
Actually, the designer may or may not ask you these things, but you can reflect on the experience you have in this field generally and be prepared to offer information if he/she asks for it.
Consider also what you will ask the designer, or rather, what you need to learn from the meeting - how much text are you likely to be able to contribute for each event (for example). Will you write the text?
I really have no idea about this sort of thing, I'm just suggesting things you could think about in an effort to get focused and calmer. Also, if someone corrects me here, it could be even more helpful to you.
posted by amtho at 7:49 PM on May 2, 2007 [1 favorite]
Also, and maybe more helpfully - perhaps the designer will be hoping for ideas from you for good timeline subjects. You know the history - what's particularly interesting to you?
posted by amtho at 7:52 PM on May 2, 2007
posted by amtho at 7:52 PM on May 2, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
Does the timeline have to sync-up with the action on the pages? That is...if event X is being discussed on page 203, then the timeline on that page should also match that period.
Or, while the timeline relates to the text, can it exist as its own entity, flowing as it needs throughout the book?
posted by Thorzdad at 1:33 PM on May 2, 2007