While reading Edward Tufte envisioning Information, I realized that information design is not only your typical bathroom sign icons or mall arrows pointing to the exit of the building. Rather, Information Design is a field that only a handful of graphic designers venture to explore. It's a world that is complex to understand and master. Achieving an effective Information Design involves simplifying the image just enough to convey the message. For example, as designers we tend to think that everything needs to be well designed; which is not a bad idea, but the problem comes afterwards. In the process of designing something good, instead of being a well design piece to transmit the message, we tend to decorate instead of designing. Reading Edward Tufte writing brings a lot of sense into what is information design. Now the book is not very appetizing as a design book but then again is an informational book. It covers a lot of ground for those interested in information design useful even for architects and map makers. Tufte includes a color section which provides very important information on how to choose colors. In information design Color is very important and the reason why it's important is because color tends to be everywhere. So as we design we use it to decorate but in information design, color needs to have a specific purpose. Color cannot be added to decorate; it has to have a purpose. For instance, in a map darker shades of blue mean ocean gets deeper lighter areas are less deep and so on. Tufte's points and rules on information design are clear, but they don't get to the idea he wants to transmit fast enough. He gives a lot of additional information instead of getting to the point but then again might be that we want everything fast now.
