I have just started a new project with a German museum. They have sent me their strategic and visitor engagement plans in a couple of PowerPoint slidedecks. I have used Google Translate to try and understand what is being communicated in my own language of English. This machine-translation is very useful but also useless. Whilst […]

On Threads, Rotomonkey, a professional Environmental Technical Artist, has critiqued this new Sora generative AI video clip. Not so much on the realism of it, but on the usability of the AI system within a production process of image imagination, option creating and editing of possibilities. The mixture of art and management that underlies the […]

This is a post about sharing images and text as something humans have done for centuries for personal wellbeing. The current period has led to greater capacity to make and share but the underlying intent is deeply embedded into humans and their societies. This is a sketch diagram I wrote last night simply to connect […]

Starting with Marshmallows The Marshmallow Test is most often used to deride children and their current, and possibly future, self control. However, there is also something else in the research. When children were allowed to talk to a parent/care giver before the test and they said how great the kid was and how good their […]

I am reading The Revolutionary Temper by Robert Darnton. It is a history book about the popular experience of the pre-French Revolution period. It is an odd book in a sense that it is about tracing and tracking how sentiment shifted in Paris as events occured. This is done by researching poems, songs and pamphlets […]

Working on a transit hub wayfinding map at the moment and they have fallen for an old information architecture mistake in physical space and human centred design terms. When you only work with top-down 2d maps and whiteboards, it is easy for the system-view (the God view) to become the information orientation. However, that then […]

This is a post about making and offering accessible maps but, more fundamentally, it is about creating a space for people to put their dreams and fears. Humans create cognitive maps within themselves. They imagine, learn and perceive so much and need some way of creating patterns to find meaning and intention for action. This […]

This is quick post about wayfinding and FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) webpages. There is a lot wrong in the above diagram I drew during a BlueSky chat but, as with most of the artefacts I make, it’s an attempt to clarify to myself a few questions and to try and provoke some answers from people […]

This is a short post about a model for talking about design in the climate crisis. The complete diagram is complicated so I will work thru the elements and build up the meanings I am trying to communicate. Hope and Energy are critical themes. The underlying mechanism is Permaculture and having a sense of direction […]

It is the political party conference season in the UK. Each party gets a week to meet up and get media attention for their policies (especially important this year with a General Election due in 2024). The Conservative Party has spent some time preparing with announcements that cut back Climate Crisis policies and cancel pro-Net […]