Lecture Notes: Information Design, Narrative & Meaning
This lecture positions information design as a long-standing human practice rather than a modern, technology-led discipline. Long before data, computers, or infographics, people used images to communicate complex ideas when language, literacy, or shared vocabulary was limited. Examples such as cave paintings at Lascaux show that early visual communication acted as a way to share knowledge, beliefs, and survival strategies across communities. These images functioned as a shared visual language, suggesting that design has always played a social role in shaping understanding and collective memory.
This idea continues through historical examples such as the Bayeux Tapestry and religious visual culture. In largely illiterate societies, imagery had to work harder than words, using scale, repetition, and narrative sequencing to communicate power, belief, and history. These examples highlight that graphic design has never been neutral; it has always been shaped by who it is for, who controls it, and what message it is intended to communicate. This is particularly relevant to the module’s focus on under-discussed narratives, as it raises questions about which stories are made visible and which are overlooked.
The lecture also introduces logograms and pictorial systems such as hieroglyphics, emojis, and global wayfinding symbols. These systems demonstrate how simplified visual signs can cross language barriers, making them especially powerful in global or transient contexts. Road signage and navigation systems show how shared visual conventions make movement through space easier, reinforcing the idea that design actively shapes our experience of place. This links closely to vernacular typography and the reading of environments through visual language.
Contemporary examples such as the London Underground map by Harry Beck reinforce the importance of abstraction, clarity, and selective distortion. By prioritising understanding over geographic accuracy, Beck transformed complex data into a usable visual system. This principle appears repeatedly throughout information design: reducing complexity without losing meaning. Infographics such as Minard’s map of Napoleon’s Russian campaign and John Snow’s cholera map show how visualising data can reveal patterns, causes, and consequences more effectively than text alone. In both cases, design becomes a tool for understanding social and political realities.
More recent practices, including health communication graphics, animated infographics, and the work of Forensic Architecture, show how information design can carry ethical weight. Visualising data can influence behaviour, raise awareness, and even expose human rights violations. At the same time, designers like Mona Chalabi demonstrate that clarity and immediacy do not require technical complexity; simple, hand-drawn visuals can be just as effective, particularly in digital and social media contexts.
Overall, this lecture reinforces the idea that information design sits at the intersection of narrative, power, and accessibility. It suggests that graphic design is not only about aesthetics, but about how stories, data, and places are interpreted and understood. This perspective is central to both the studio practice and essay briefs, where design is positioned as an active agent in revealing, reshaping, or challenging cultural narratives.
Quiet project sparks (for you to notice, not force yet)