The 2009 London Underground map (Image: Transport for London)

Last week the UK’s design community was rocked (or nudged, depending on your viewpoint), by a frosty televisual exchange between information designer David McCandless and the infamously opinionated Neville Brody. Appearing on BBC 2′s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight, the pair debated the validity of information design, with McCandless in favour and Brody against. Whilst the jury’s out on whether information graphics is indeed “the language of the eye” (McCandless) or just “beguiling and seductive”, (Brody), it was a treat to see graphic design go ‘mainstream’ – even if it was at a quarter to eleven on a weekday night. However, all this talk about information graphics got me thinking about the value of information design, and about the influence of one info-graphic in particular.

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Just because it's social Notworking, don't think I won't be putting the effort in! (Image: Glug)

The speaking season is clearly upon us, since I’ll be speaking again following my presentation to The Typographic Circle, at Glug Brighton on Friday 9th July.

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Airside: Typadelic, a talk at the Typographic Circle 24th June 2010

Just a quick update whilst I’m on holiday, but I wanted to let those who might be interested that I’ll be speaking at The Typographic Circle along with Airside’s Alex Maclean on the 24th June 2010.

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'What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given about graphic design?'

If I told you that by the end of this article you’d be a better designer would you believe me? It’s a bold statement and not one I make lightly but I’m willing to put your trust and my reputation on the line to share with you what could be the most useful piece of advice concerning graphic design you’ll ever hear. Even if you disagree, I’d still argue the following advice is an incredibly effective take on the design process.

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The previous attempt, now a wrinkled, smelly reminder of failure

With the first potato printing experiment having gone slightly awry, I decided to return to the medium with a slightly more focused process.

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The raw material

I’ll freely admit I’m not the cleanest person in the world, but during an odd spell of spring-cleaning I stumbled across a couple of green potatoes that my girlfriend assured me would lead to a world of trouble if I attempted to cook it. Not a big fan of wasting food, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to have a go at potato printing, an activity I’ve been hankering to do for a while now.

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Space and graphic design, the final terrifying frontier (Background image: NASA)

Seeing how planetary exploration rarely graces the pages of Creative Review, it’s easy to picture the expressions worn by an audience comprised mainly of creatives, as I wheeled out the first slide of my talk: ‘A Graphic Designer’s Guide to: The Pioneer 10 Plaque’.

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The Design Museum (Image: The Design Museum)

Last summer, as part of the Design Museum’s Super Contemporary season, I joined fellow Airsiders Nat Hunter, Fred Deakin and Malika Favre to talk about every (yes, every) single job that had passed through the studio in the past 6 months.

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Handmade typography used to print the Airplot identity (Image: Airside)

Seeing how this is the first post of a new blog, I’m conscious that things look a little sparse. With this at the forefront of my mind I think it might be useful to link back to a few of the more coherent posts I wrote for the Airside blog over 2009. A good place to start would be some of my Process posts.

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