This Information Design Index Card, number 05 created by Gritchelle Fallesgon, is part of a set of 24 cards created by the students of DAI 523, Information Design 1 during the Fall semester of 2009. This set, conceived by Instructor Pino Trogu, covers a range of Information Design topic areas, chosen and researched by each student. DAI 523 is a fourth-year design course within the Design and Industry Department at San Francisco State University. DAI 523 provides students with an introduction to the field of information design, covering stand-alone and system applications across print, interactive (digital), and environmental mediums.

DAI 523Information Design 1Design and Industry DepartmentSan Francisco State University1600 Holloway Ave, California 94132, USAInformation Design Index Card No. 05 – October 2009Printed by _____________

STUDENTPICTUREHERE

05INFORMATION DESIGN INDEX CARDS

DESIGN DUO, RAY AND CHARLES EAMES, are most often known for their iconic mid-century modern fur-niture designs for Herman Miller: the Eames Lounge Chair and Eames Plywood Lounge Chair. What most people do not realize is that the Eameses were more than furniture designers, they were photographers, architects, and most im-portantly information de-signers. Their contribution to the field of information design can be seen most notably seen in the film Powers of Ten and their interactive exhibition design for IBM, titled Mathematica: A World of Numbers... and Beyond.

“The Eameses’ method of design was highly systematic”

1. http://www.vitra.com/en-it/office/designers/charles-and-ray-eames

2. Chart Plotting Sequences ofPowers of Ten, 1977. Library of Congresshttp://www.loc.gov/exhibits/eames

3. Diagram by Charles.Library of Congresshttp://www.loc.gov/exhibits/eames

R AY & CHARLES

EAMES

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Information Design Through Films & Exhibitions

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WORKS CITED

1. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/eames

2. ERIN MALONE Learning from the Powers of 10 http://www.boxesandarrows.com

3. EAMES DEMETRIOS An Eames Primer

3. ROBERT E. JACOBSON Information Design

PHOTOS

A. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/eamesB. EAMES DEMETRIOS An Eames Primer

Information Design Index Cards is a set of cards designed and produced by the students of DAI 523, Information Design 1, a fourth-year course in the Design and Industry Department, San Francisco State University, Fall 2009. The set, by no means complete, is composed of 1+22 cards on Information Design topics. Coordinated by instructor Pino Trogu, each topic was chosen and researched by the students. DAI 523 provides students with an introduction to the field of information design, covering a variety of applications across print, screen and environmental media. This is card number 05 and it was designed byGritchelle Fallesgon.

DAI 523Information Design IDesign and Industry DepartmentCollege of Creative ArtsSan Francisco State UniversityCalifornia, USA – October 2009Information Design Index Card No.05Printed by JASK Digital Printing

The film Powers of Ten explores the relative size of things from the micro-scopic to the cosmic. The 1977 film travels from an aerial view of a man in a Chicago park to the outer limits of the universe directly above him and back down into the microscopic world contained in the man’s hand. Powers of Ten illustrates the universe as an arena of both continuity and change, of everyday picnics and cosmic mystery. The film also demonstrates the Eameses’ ability to make science both fascinating and accessible.” 1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

“The exploration of information presentation in the Rough Sketch (the 1968 version) and in the final Powers of Ten, speaks to the value of models that the Eameses used to explain their ideas about information organization and pre-sentation. The imagery explores both size relationships and time. It explores the visual relationships of elements and developing patterns that emerge at different scales […] The Eameses push the boundaries of what can be taken in and understood at any one time, they play with the notion of information overload and information absorption.” 2 ERIN MALONE

“Mathematica: A World of Numbers... and Beyond is the direct ancestor of the modern museum exhibition. Undoubtedly, there had been other predeces-sors and precursors, but as an expression of the ability of an exhibition to be meaningful, fun, and interactive, Mathematica took exhibitions to a new level. It was also a spectacular statement of Charles and Ray’s interest in science and its importance to them in almost the way of a New Covertable. In the his-tory of the Eames Office, Mathematica was the first major endeavor to address primarily science as opposed to technology.

Charles and Ray proposed the idea of an exhibition that would convey some basic mathematical ideas with rich visual material and interactive exhibits. This idea ultimately became Mathematica; it was developed over the course of about a year and was installed at the California Museum of Science and Indus-try in March 1961. Mathematica demonstrates beautifully the idea of natural overlap…You see that mathematics was an area of genuine interest to the office—an evolving interest in education, but even more in the context of being a contributor to the quality of life.” 3 EAMES DEMETRIOS

Powers of Ten and Mathematica are great examples of information design because both consisted of complex data that were visually presented in an understandable and meaningful way. “The Eameses’ method of design was highly systematic. First they decomposed a design program into its myriad components and subcomponents, a hundred subtasks for every major task. Then they analyzed the smallest part one by one, striving with each succes-sive evaluation to choose the design alternative that equaled or surpassed in quality the choices made before. Meticulously the Eameses arrived at the best of the smallest parts and then, just as rigorously, assembled these unit by unit, until the resulting product represented the sum of a thousand excellent deci-sions.” 4

ROBERT E. JACOBSON

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