Community

A Critical Moment in the Field
Communication and technology are at the core of an increasingly complex world. Consider the vast number of messages we process daily, and our reliance on computers, cellphones, and palm pilots for their transmission. Think about the channels of digital media — sound, image and motion — that can be merged to create larger experiences. And what about our information needs? We are consumers of healthcare, jurors making judgments involving DNA or pollution, and netsurfers searching for abstruse and specific details. The volume, media and nature of information coursing through our culture has revolutionized the our world and the role that designers can play in it.

Design is at a crossover point — a place where art and science overlap. Eames’ film “Powers of Ten” merges elegant design with scientific data to help its audiences visualize the macro and micro, outer space and minutiae within the human body. This project set an important interdisciplinary precedent; it merged two distinct professions and modes of thought into one unified communication. Given technology and culture today, our need for the kind of intersection that the Eames’ work proposes, is more important than ever. Many graphic designers, thoroughly trained in the properties of image, color, composition, line, and shape, have little understanding of science.