Design Feast’s Makers Series—123rd Interview: Information Designer & Consultant Sandina Miller Materializes Honest and Humble Clarity

It was the typographic nerdy of Sandina Miller’s Twitter feed that led me to her work that focused on a discipline I cherish a lot: Information Design. Here at Design Feast, she articulates her passion for making communication that’s as clear as it can be to guide effectively its recipients.

Firstly, congratulations on exceeding a decade as a Typographic Designer and Consultant! What does independence mean to you? As it relates to creativity, making, working.

Thank you! The time’s gone fairly quickly. When I initially moved from on-staff to freelancing, my focus and background were in wayfinding as well as print typography with a smattering of digital design. Now I’m increasingly focused on communications.

Being independent means I can be flexible and more in control when working on my own projects. It also means I bring a different perspective when I do projects with on-staff design teams. Creatively, it can be both freeing and taxing. I decide my own schedule which means I can take a break when I need it without worrying about contracted hours. However, the flip-side is I can get engrossed in work and forget to take a break—this is where the office tea-breaks are handy! Also, working at home alone means I don’t get to enjoy the team-vibe of being in a studio. I miss the catch-ups, chatter and impromptu feedback that improves my ideas and stimulates me to think in different ways. I also miss the mutual support of agency life: being in a studio and able to turn around and ask for or offer help.

How did you become interested in a career involving typography, information design, communication design? Who, what helped motivate you?

Good question! I’ve always had varied interests—from philosophy to maths (yes, really although my maths cells now seem to have deserted me)—but design won. Before university, I did the International Baccalaureate (IB) at an international college. IB schools emphasise extra-curricular activities and I did a few, including writing and doing layout (Anyone remember PageMaker?) for the college magazine. When it was time to apply for university, I chose the University of Reading where I got a scholarship to study typography and graphic communication. The Reading course was a great mix of hands-on vocational work with history and theory to keep me more intellectually engaged.

My university mentors (especially Gerry Leonidas, Paul Stiff, Sue Walker and Paul Luna) supported and encouraged me on several major projects: from type design to wayfinding to my dissertation on newspaper design.

After I graduated, I worked with Mark Barratt and the Text Matters team in Reading, UK. It was an intense time, and I grew a lot as a person and as a designer. I learned so much about practical adjustments, working with clients from academic, public and non-profit sectors, real-world digital design, and accessible, inclusive design.

Over time, I became a facilitator as well as creator. Whether I worked on a map, a poster or a social media marketing plan, the core was managing different elements, content and people to develop solutions. The people I met, worked with and learned from—whether at university or professional working at Text Matters—all helped me build on my formal training to become …
 

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Making Rare Book Feast #1: Herbert Bayer’s Book of Maps

From my rare design book collection, designer Herbert Bayer’s “World Geo-Graphic Atlas” keeps my attention. I wrote about it. This time I wanted to make a video of it.

I pitched the idea to my collaborator, Joe Giovenco, since I know nothing about working with audio and video. We’ve done some audio reviews of creative business books. He was game. As this was an on-the-side project, we worked over a few weekends, and Joe spent a few nights assembling, editing and refining the footage.



Camera and Microphone
The primary draw for this project was digital documentation. Joe did some research and determined that a Canon EOS Rebel T2i Digital SLR camera would have the best price point vs. performance—we split the cost and acquired one. But the thrill was short-lived: Joe noticed a rogue red pixel in the test photos. It was mailed (twice) for repairs. Afterwards, the camera cooperated. An Azden mic was used for the narration which was done at a separate time.



Software
Another draw for this project was Joe’s experience with Ableton Live and Adobe After Effects. The learning curve was minimal, but handling digital material with moving images and sound sucked up a lot of computing power, which became evident on Joe’s pre-unibody MacBook Pro. Much time was spent waiting for effects to render themselves. For drafting the script and storyboards, I relied on Microsoft Office, while the stills were handled in Adobe Photoshop.



To organize our files and share them, from iterative storyboards and scripts to soundtrack samples and to-dos, we used 37signals’ Backpack. I’ve been using this webapp for a lot of projects and it proved useful again for this collaboration.

What’s next?
The next rare design book project is TBD. In the meantime, enjoy our first installment of Rare Book Feast:



Big thanks to Joe for the video and audio engineering plus photography—most of all, a fun collaboration.

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The reception to the first installment of Rare Book Feast has been tremendous. This would not have been possible without Tina Roth Eisenberg of swissmiss, Maria Popova of Brain Pickings and The Atlantic, Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners, Daniel Benning of ONEEIGHTNINE, and Dan Wagstaff of The Casual Optimist. Big thanks to each of these awesome Gestalt-Ingenieurs and to viewers like you!

From Scandals to Stimulus: Visualizing Finance

Reflecting a clear signs of the times, news headlines are infused with a financial language that ranges from scandals to stimulus. Here are a few visuals aimed at demystifying the loaded, complex terms currently playing a big role in the economy:



Karen Yourish (reporting) and Laura Stanton (graphic) of The Washington Post visually tackle the composition of the stimulus package.



Katherine Dillon and Kate Thompson of the media design firm Dillon Thompson created a step-by-step walkthrough of a Ponzi scheme.



Dillon Thompson also illustrated the meaning of a Pyramid scheme.



Jonathan Jarvis, Masters of Fine Arts Candidate in the Media Design Program at the Art Center College of Design, created a series of animated shorts to help visualize the Crisis of Credit.



J. Jason Smith, of the blog Graphicology, comments on the presentations given by GM and Chrysler about their survival plans.

For additional sources that tackle the complicated nature of the economy, the New York Times has their Economix blog. There’s Planet Money by National Public Radio, and the program Frontline produced Inside the Meltdown with timeline.

There seems to be no fatigue in sight when it comes to envisioning information about the state of the economy. As Credit of Crisis creator Jonathan Jarvis put it: “The goal is to give form to the complex financial crisis to enhance the understanding of it.”

Optimized for Energy Conversation: Utility Statements Adjusted toward Green

Image credit: Max Whittaker for The New York Times

California’s experiment with redesigned statements, issued to Sacramento residents, is aimed at helping to change minds about energy. A positive byproduct of the effort has proven to be neighborly competition: Who can lower energy consumption the most? Find out more at my latest piece for the Green Printer blog.

Previous post: Designer Scott Ballum’s Consume®econnection Project

Design the Vote!

Information Architect Sean Tevis is running for Kansas State Representative. The illustrative and witty presentation of his campaign is reminiscent of the book Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. The unconventional approach is helping to bring in contributions as a result.