from 'designing information' to 'designing information processes'

abstract

In the field of graphic design, i recognize a pattern of 'designing' on a high level. I call this 'high level design' because of the tradition to formulate design questions on the level of the interface and the interpretation of the reader. This is different in the field of computed type design, where fonts are built out of outlines, skeletons or dots; depending on their constructions. Also the field of experimental book design could be regarded as a exception. Though, in the field of web design, working on the level of the interface is very common, but could be avoided by regarding 'design' as designing a 'workflow'. That will lead to a design practise where questions regarding 'new media' and 'computation' could be considered as design questions. Design questions are then related to the use of tools (software), social workstructure, conservation, and principles regarding sharing and commercializing.*

from semiotics to software

As coming from a background in graphic design i became interested in mediation and communication techniques. I got educated in a quite traditional way: a focus on typography and visual language, combined with courses in editorial design. I became interested in semiotics, and in systems that use symbols/icons/indexes to construct meaning.

My interest focused specifically on language, our primary communication system. Language does not only mediate the contact between human to human, but also the relation from a human to objects and other entities in the world around us. It is a tool to understand, categorize and give meaning to the world. This is an obvious process that happens to everyone, but the semiotic writings of Saussure and Pierce made such invisible systems a topic of research: they introduced me to systems that describe such mediating processes. I became enthusiastic to learn about signs that are signifying certain meaning within culture, as the color 'gold' can signify richness, or the color 'red' can either stand for aggresion or socialism. Fascinating systems, useful as analysis tools, but described already in the 60s and mainly applied in the field of advertisement. It was therefore difficult to implement in my practise.

Since my time here at the Piet Zwart, i feel that my interest shifts from designing information on an interface level, to designing information processes. Being fascinated by looking at inner workings of techniques and being affected by the 'free and open software' principles, bring up a whole set of new design questions. For example:

* How can an interface reveal its inner system? 
* And how could a workflow effect the information it is processing? 
* What to do with being dependent on an online services like WordPress, to publish? 
* Should we reconsider workflows that only can happen online? 
* How can documents not only be published but also conserved as readible documents?
  (as opposed to database entries that are stored in binary?) 
* When could a document be called 'a document'? 
  When it is readable for the user or for the computer?

I started to look at software that processes human language. I was curious to see how software is designed to understand us, our human language system. These software packages contain dictionaries, datasets, wordlists, scripts (and much more), which suddenly materialized the meaning-making-process. The physicality of those wordlist and the structure of such datasets are reflecting aims to understand the human world, (written by humans of course).

As my design tools and material also change, and the field as well, i try to understand how software mediates, how programming languages mediate. They are my new material to design with, my new languages. I don't 'master' them, and, they are heavily related to fast changes in new media. This is both exciting and terrifying at the same time.

* derived from the following 'argument template': In the history of (...) i recognize a pattern of (...). This could be avoided by (...) because (...). Then it would be possible to (...).