The new NJ Transit train schedules, designed by TwoTwelve Associates, are finally being distributed. It’s a marked improvement if you ask me.
When I was in school, my student chapter of AIGA went on a studio tour of some design firms. The first firm we went to was BIG, the in-house design department at Ogilvy, where they showed us lots of impressive large-scall branding projects for the likes of Coke, Sprite, and Kodak. The last place we went to was TwoTwelve, a smaller firm that specializes in more information design related projects.
Afterwards, a few of my fellow students (who had loved Ogivly) complained that TwoTwelve’s work was “boring.” This got me thinking about the difference between “advertising design” and “information design.”
(First a disclaimer—I’m certainly not suggesting that my ideas here are original. I’m sure they have been discussed to death by design MFA students and professors everywhere. But I seem to run into a lot of young designers that don’t seem to appreciate information design.)
Advertising Design, as I see it, is any design where you’re trying to sell a product or an idea. Everything from bookcovers, to posters, packaging design, identity design. The goal in all these is to grab your attention and sell a concept, which requires a successful design to stand out. A successfull advertising design project should “pop,” as they say.
Information Design is the exact opposite. Great information design is not perceptible to the general public. Yes, it should be aestheically pleasing, but it shouldn’t “jump out at you”—that would just distract from the viewer from understanding the information and slow comprehension.
Of course, neither of these exist in a vacuum. Most projects consist of a balancing act between the two. Unfortunately, designers that specialize in information usually end up home alone on a Friday night, adjusting the kerning in their “boring” portfolios, while the rockstar designers are out giving lectures in sold-out stadiums to legions of impressionable fans who are screaming their names and hurling undergarments at them.
Or something like that.
