Este comunicado de prensa contiene información actualizada y datos que no están incluidos en el resumen. Puntos destacados de la investigación: Las tasas de supervivencia a los paros cardíacos extrahospitalarios en los EE. UU. disminuyeron de manera ...

Puntos destacados de la investigación: Los científicos realizaron un estudio de simulación para estimar el impacto del síndrome cardiovascular-renal-metabólico (CKM) en la predicción del riesgo de enfermedad cardiovascular (ECV). El estudio reveló que ...

Puntos destacados de la investigación: Una versión de la puntuación de riesgo de enfermedades cardíacas del Estudio multiétnico de la aterosclerosis (MESA) que no incluía la raza predijo el riesgo de enfermedades cardíacas tan bien como la versión...

Puntos destacados de la investigación: Un análisis de los datos de la base de datos WONDER del CDC reveló un aumento del 180 % en el número de muertes por enfermedad cardíaca isquémica relacionada con la obesidad en EE. UU. entre 1999 y 2020. Las ...

Puntos destacados de la investigación: En un análisis de más de 7000 supervivientes de un derrame cerebral, aquellos que tomaban un agonista del receptor del GLP1 o un medicamento inhibidor del SGLT2 tuvieron un menor riesgo posterior de sufrir un...

Research Highlights: The socioeconomic status of first-time moms in early pregnancy may affect their cardiovascular health up to seven years later. Socioeconomic status — education level, income level, health insurance status and health literacy — of ...

Research Highlights: A preliminary study combining a patent-applied, AI-powered algorithm with a high-speed, 5-to 30-second video of skin on the face and the palm of the hand detected if someone had high blood pressure as well as using a blood ...

Research Highlights: A study of older adults in Australia and the U.S. indicates that cholesterol levels that fluctuate significantly from year to year without a change in medication may someday help to identify those with a higher risk of developing ...

This news release contains updated information and data not included in the abstract. Research Highlights: U.S. survival rates from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests fell significantly at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and only slightly ...

Research Highlights: Fear of another heart attack was a significant ongoing contributor to how heart attack survivors perceive their health, according to a new study. While anxiety and depression are recognized as common conditions after a heart ...

Research Highlights: In an analysis of more than 7,000 stroke survivors, those who were taking either a GLP1-receptor agonist or an SGLT2 inhibitor medication had a lower risk of a subsequent stroke, heart attack or death compared to peers who were ...

Research Highlights: A small survey of adults aged 30 to 89 (average age of 65) in Sweden who have heart conditions found that there is a significant difference between the sexual health information they seek and what is provided to them by their ...

Research Highlights: Heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity were more common and linked to reduced access to healthy food among people who lived in neighborhoods previously subjected to structural racism-based policies that ...

Research Highlights: Scientists conducted a simulation study to estimate the impact of cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk prediction. The study found that adults with chronic kidney disease would have ...

This news release contains updated information and data not included in the abstract. Research Highlights: The sooner a lay rescuer (bystander) starts cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on a person having a cardiac arrest at home or in public, up to ...

Research Highlights: A version of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) heart disease risk score that did not include race predicted heart disease risk just as well as the original version that includes race. The original MESA risk score, ...

Research Highlights: A study of nearly 2,400 cardiac arrest cases in North Carolina found that when emergency dispatchers (telecommunicators) provided cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) instructions to 911 callers, people were more likely to provide ...

Washington, DC, November 2, 2024 – Thousands of survivors, business leaders and medical professionals convened for the annual Greater Washington Heart Walk at the National Mall. Representing more than 500 teams, 84 companies and around 10,000 walkers,...

Updated Guideline Highlights: The American Heart Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics update recommendations for untrained lay rescuers and trained rescuers resuscitating adults and children who have drowned. One important update is the ...

Estero, Fla., Nov. 12, 2024 —The American Heart Association, the world’s leading nonprofit organization focused on heart and brain health for all, hosted the 2024 Collier Heart Walk at Cambier Park on Saturday, November 2, raising over $360,000 to help...

PORTAGE COUNTY, 4 de noviembre de 2024 — Los directores ejecutivos, educadores y padres de todo el mundo saben que formar la próxima generación de mujeres científicas, médicas e inventoras es un paso fundamental para establecer su futuro, así como el...

STARK COUNTY, 28 DE OCTUBRE DE 2024 – La American Heart Association (la Asociación Americana del Corazón), que es la principal organización sin ánimo de lucro del mundo dedicada a la salud del corazón y el cerebro para todos, cuenta ahora con centros de...

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Statement Highlights: A new scientific statement outlines the role of primary care professionals in helping their patients achieve Life's Essential 8, the key measures for improving and maintaining cardiovascular health defined by the American Heart ...

In today's tutorial you'll be brushing up on your photo manipulation skills, by creating a mystical tribal warrior. This tutorial is packed full of useful techniques, from blending tactics, to digital painting, lighting, layout sketching and much more.

In this tutorial I'll show you how to create a dark and emotional fallen angel scene using a variety of photo manipulation techniques. You'll work with blending techniques, adjusting colour, practice retouching, painting and more.

In this tutorial I'll show you how to paint a fantasy woman portrait with Photoshop. You'll learn how to use brush to paint properly as well as take care of details. A graphic tablet is highly recommended for this tutorial.

Today's tutorial will walk you through some essential manipulation, blending and colour matching techniques. In this lesson I'll show you how you can convert a forest into a dark, foggy, ominous scene. You'll learn how to work with shadows, lighting, adjustment layers, layer masks, dodge & burning and much more.

In this tutorial I'll show you how to create a misty landscape matte painting with a dark castle. We'll create a misty scene with the layered mountains and the light from afar. The main technique here is blending with adjustment layers, masking and brushes. There are something basic you should know about contrast, distance, intensity etc, and we'll dive into all of those in today's lesson!

In this tutorial, I'll show how you can combine different stock images to create this cohesive and unified scene of an aquatic Giant tortoise. You'll also learn how to manipulate trees, stones, waterfalls and textures to create an island on the tortoise. Finally, we'll add lighting effects and adjust the colour of our entire scene.

Today I have a really exciting update, sharing exactly what I've been working on for the past year. At my other website Design Cuts, we've just launched the most curated, high quality marketplace anywhere for designers just like you!

  If you have been working from home the past year or so, you are not alone!   As you know, since the Covid-19 pandemic erupted, remote working has started to become a norm (due to safe management measures to mitigate the risk of wide-spreading...

The post How to Work From Home as a Designer appeared first on Design Sojourn. Please click above if you cannot see this post.

ESC, the leading sustainability consultancy in Asia, and Design Sojourn, a renowned design thinking and innovation consultancy, have partnered to launch the Innovating for Sustainability Programme (ISP). This new programme aims to help Singaporean companies capture new innovative business opportunities and enhance their capabilities in...

The post ESC and Design Sojourn’s Innovating for Sustainability Programme Offers Grant Support for Singaporean Companies appeared first on Design Sojourn. Please click above if you cannot see this post.

What do Design Thinking and boxing have in common? Surprisingly, more than you might think. As an Experience designer who has been boxing recreationally for the past two and a half years, I have discovered surprising parallels between these seemingly unrelated practices. In this article,...

The post 3 Ways Boxing Has Made Me A Better Design Thinker appeared first on Design Sojourn. Please click above if you cannot see this post.

In an era where technology is rapidly advancing, it is tempting to view it as a universal remedy for a myriad of challenges. However, while technology has immense potential, it cannot solve problems by itself. The effectiveness of technology as a solution is influenced by...

The post Why Technology Alone Can’t Solve Problems: The Importance of Human-Centred Design appeared first on Design Sojourn. Please click above if you cannot see this post.

Orientation & Identity

Wayfinding, signage design is still a young profession, balancing on the edge of two and three dimensional design. Wayfinding often is described as spatial problem solving and designers are multidisciplinary, with a psychological look into showing the way.

The book Orientation & Identity has 17 different projects discussed and show the potential for clients, urban planners, entrepreneurs and politicians. Each project is described from designer and client point of reference, giving a great insight on how the projects came together. This heavy weighted book shows a great in-depth insight in the field of architecture, environmental graphic design and wayfinding.

About Orientation & Identity

The first few chapters give an insight on identity and orientation standard, the philosophy and architecture. The wide range of interviews include, city-wayfinding, airport signage, Dutch road signs, museum design and corporate wayfinding in Europe. The book is written in both German and English, at first you need to adjust a bit to find the reading language of choice, after a few moments I was used reading the bottom of the pages.

The case studies starts off with a introduction of the topic followed by the people behind the projects, with full background details you will get a good feeling of who participated in the project. The interviews start by asking who participated and why projects are initiated, then the story following the discussion during the project. A great insight on how they made specific choices to come to a solution for the project.

The pages are filled with full color (detailed) photos of projects accompanied by sketches and / or 2D images of the wayfinding systems.

Projects included in the book:

• Legible London, London; City wayfinding
• Dialogmuseum, Frankfurt; Museum wayfinding
• Effenaar, Eindhoven; Environmental identity
• Messe, Stuttgart; Identity and wayfinding
• College wayfinding
• Dutch road signage, Holland; Typography Road signs and wayfinding
• Zürich Airport, Zürich; signage design and wayfinding strategy
• Lower Austrian Clinics, Niederösterreich; Hospital wayfinding systems
• and much much more

As the true value of the book is the various insights on the people involved to get a great perspective on how the projects emerged.

Conclusion

I personally enjoyed reading Orientation & Identity for various reasons; the focus of projects are European, that makes this book very relevant for EU countries and stands out to the many US wayfinding / signage books. Secondly the in-depth interviews with various stakeholders, architects and designers behind a project makes it interesting to get a peek inside a project. Lastly the book also provides in technical details, at the end some projects are displayed with typefaces details, construction drawings and iconography.

The language separation is not disturbing but could have been done better in my opinion and the weight of the book does not make it comfortable holding it for a longer period of time. Overall, if you are looking for the stories behind large-scale wayfinding and signage projects in Europe, this is the book for you.

Availability

The book is worldwide available via amazon.

There are several books about signage systems and environmental graphic design available. Andreas Uebele wrote the book Signage systems & Information graphics and this is one of the best and most extensive books about signage available

Signage systems & Information Graphics

The 336 counting pages book has a hard cover and is 28,5 x 24 cm. The pages read well and quickly you can find what you are looking for by the index. The text layout and choose of typography fits well and reads great, designed in a grid way (similar to how signage is designed).

Andreas Uebele is a well known designer with the design identity agency in Germany “Büro Uebele”. They have managed to design many signage & information graphics projects in the last years, from airports, offices, library and more. The author describes the following elements of signage design:

• Signage design, typography and how to choose a typeface
• Production, planning and sign management
• Projects from sign designs from all over the world
• Extensive drawings and photos from sign projects

Typography & Signage

A key factor in signage design & information graphics is the choose of typography, with the choose of typeface you are able to make or break a design and its functionality. In the book is explained how to choose a typeface and what characteristics a certain typeface needs to have in order to be used in signage systems.

Uebele mentions different typefaces that they used in projects and explains the differences between the mentioned typefaces. A good introduction into choosing a typeface for signage & information graphics. Further on in the introduction the book goes deeper into designing for signage and which methods to use in order to achieve an effective signage & wayfinding system. With various examples and drawings you quickly read how and what to design.

Sign Design

The book explains how to use proper color systems and how to place them into a environment to create a good working signage system. The author explains why they have chosen the color combination, typography and size of the airport signage project described in the book.

A great insight in learning more about signage design. Further on there are more projects described and explained with extensive photo material and the actual production drawings. By the drawings you can get a good view of how the signage systems are designed and produced.

Signage projects from other designers

In the book are also described many other projects from different designers and design agencies than Buro Uebele, for instance Schiphol designed by Bureau Mijksenaar. There are various images and concept drawings aswel as the detailed information about typography, color use and more. By adding more information from other designers makes this book a must have reference guide into graphic design and signage systems. You get a clear insight of signage projects which control people in various fields of visual communication and showing them the way.

In this roundup of some of the Magazines & Blogs are in Dutch others are written in English. Below each of the screenshot there is language information, please enjoy this list of Dutch Graphic Design Magazines & Blogs, share your favorite Dutch Design blog in the comments below. Thank you and enjoy reading!

Vector Arrow

Arrows originate from pointing with the human finger towards a direction. In todays graphic design arrows are widely used in all kinds of forms and shapes.

This collection of arrows are designed for environmental graphic design, signage and wayfinding. The arrows are designed from a legibility perspective and should instantly be recognized as showing a direction. The collection is designed by graphic designer Sander Baumann and now released for you to use in your designs.
When you start a design for wayfinding or signage it is important to choose a arrow that fits your overall design scheme. Use the arrow on a high contrast for maximum exposure and readability. This collection had 56 different arrow designs, experiment with the arrows in your artwork/design scheme. Below you will find a few examples of the arrows at work.

Download

The 56 free vector Arrow Symbols & Icons are created under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, meaning the vector images can be used either for personal or commercial purposes and may be changed to your own ideas, if you will credit my work or the website it will be highly appreciated.

Arrow Pro Asset Toolkit

We have developed a professional paid arrow toolkit with over 448+ arrow symbol signs and a 44+ pages manual. Download at our tools section today.

Symbol sign collection

All the symbols have been designed & created by Sander Baumann and set to the proportions of a regular typeface, so you no longer need to copy/paste the symbols into your designs.

In this free collection I have added common used symbol signs for public services such as Toilets, Telephone, First Aid, Elevator, Information, Restaurant, Coffee Shop, Smoking, Baby, Recycle Icon, Shower, Reception desk, Arrows collection and much, much more.

The symbol signs can be used for signage & wayfinding projects. The complete symbol collection is optimized for reproduction methods such as engraving, laser engraving/cutting, screen printing and self adhesive film to manufacture the signs you need.

Details

The symbol signs have been designed for good readability and functionality, when installing the typeface into your computer the typeface symbol signs is added to your system, I have set the icons to match the most common letters for the symbols, for example F = female, M = male, d = disabled, L = arrow left, R = arrow right, U = arrow up, D = arrow down, and so on. This allows you to quickly add the symbol sign you need.

You can find FF Meta all around you, this is a collection of designs where we found the use of typeface FF Meta.

FF Meta® is a wonderful typeface designed by Erik Spiekermann, the font family was released between 1991 and 1998. A very readable typeface in smaller point sizes but also with enough detail to display in large point sizes. FF Meta is a sans-serif typeface which can be found all around you. The last several months where every I came (The Netherlands) I saw typeface Meta, in this font series you can see the many different faces of the FF Meta®.

FF Meta

The Complete Font Family contains a package of 24 variations (via FontShop) and was published by FontFont (see their website for lots of Meta usage), is available in the following formats Mac PostScript, PC PostScript, PC TrueType. All styles Book, Caps, Bold and Bold Caps are also available in Italic. Starting from a set of 3 fonts at € 40,- to the complete font family for € 229,-. When bought at FontShop you can download the fonts after the purchase and start using them right away. Although FF Meta® is not in the top 10 bestsellers at FontShop I believe this is a very popular font.

• Visit FontShop for a complete overview of the Meta Font Family 1
• The complete overview of 55 variants of Meta Font Family.
• The Meta 3 Font package which contains Meta Hairline, Meta Thin & Meta Light. (Thank you Stephen Coles for adding the links)
• Wikipedia information page about the font Meta

Typeface: Rijksoverheid Sans / Serif

Currently there are over 200 departments and ministries which all have different logos and uses different typefaces as their brand identity. In a pitch held by the Dutch government studio Dumbar won this competition and introduced a new logo and 1 brand identity: 1 Logo.

From the beginning of 2008 Peter Verheul was asked by studio Dumbar to take his typeface Versa and transform the typeface usable for a larger audience. He changed the look and feel of the Serif version of Versa Serif and created a complete new set of letters for the Sans version. The fonts are named Rijksoverheid Sans and Rijksoverheid Serif. The name of the typeface is recognizable as “government” and will be used in every way of visual communication.

The Rijksoverheid Sans will be used mainly for headings of text and in signage or wayfinding systems. The Rijksoverheid Serif is used as bread letter for reading text. In just under nine months Peter Verheul managed to finalize the fonts and released them in four different variations, from Regular, Italic to Bold.

Designing the Rijksoverheid typeface

Letterijk book

During the time of creation Peter Verheul did not have much time to take pictures (as said in his introduction speech) but he kept a note book full of drawings and notes of creating and designing the typefaces. After finishing the typefaces he donated them to Bijzondere Collecties, a Dutch important collection of valuable work from Dutch graphical, typographical- artists. The Bijzondere Collections hosts the booklet, first printouts and everything that is related in creating the typeface Rijksoverheid.

Letterrijk Book is a story about the birth and why of creation the typeface Rijksoverheid written by Mathieu Lommen, published by De Buitenkant Publishers. The booklet covers everything from the start of the project and the combination with project 1 Logo, a story about how the typography started working together, with many drawn examples of early stages of letter design. It also covers the complete glyphs of the typeface variations, with over 700 glyphs each this typeface is multi-language proof. With the design of the typeface several key factors of demands where given to Peter Verheul and Studio Dumbar.

The typeface should be easy to read, should not be too wide in order to reduce printing costs, it could be used for all forms of visual communication of the Dutch Government and every department will use it therefore it will reduce the costs of different typeface licenses. The typeface will function as a bridge between society and government, a typeface that everybody will feel comfortable with.

Rijksoverheids typeface

The Rijksoverheid Sans, an easy to read typeface with a large x-height. This allows maximum legibility for heading text, signage, wayfinding and other forms of visual identity. In the introduction speech Peter Verheul mentioned that he was impressed by the way the Sans version would be used for bread letter. He is interested to see the further development of Rijksoverheid Sans in this field.

Rijksoverheid Serif is the bread letter for reading text, I have read the booklet a couple of times and it seems to be a very legible typeface. Which will form the basis of the whole brand identity of the Dutch Government.

Project 1 Logo

The Dutch government brand identity was not concise or consistent, with over 200 departments and ministries costs were rising of each department havigd their own logo, typeface, print materials, signage and everything that involves the visual communication of that department. There was not a direct link to society and confusion about the identity the government wants to presents themselves. Project 1 Logo was born to bring back all brand identity of the Dutch government and give one signal to society about what the government stands for. In a pitch several design studios participated in order to create 1 Logo, 1 brand, 1 identity, 1 way of communicating between society and government, coming all together as 1 government.

From 2009 until 2011 every department should use the new logo and typeface in all forms of visual communication, a huge operation which involves many parties. I believe there will be a brand guideline from studio Dumbar to lead everything into the correct, concise and consistent use of the brand identity.

Read more

• Studio Dumbar, the designer of 1 Logo identity.
• Dutch government website about project 1 Logo, Rijkshuisstijl.
• Website of designer Peter Verheul

A unique ancient map of the Mesopotamian world. Babylonian, about 700-500 BC. Image courtesy of The British Museum.

Early wayfinding map

Early map creating represents a significant step forward in the intellectual development of knowledge for the human race. The information and maps were used as tools and could be passed on from one generation to another. Early maps are not geographical correct, but maps to capture the observers spatial knowledge of a space as a cognitive map. These maps contained the characteristics of that particular space and that could be remembered by humans, such as paths, landmarks, nodes, mountains, sea and areas.

One of the oldest maps of the Mesopotamian World dates back to around 500-700 BC. This is a unique ancient carved tablet that contains a cuneiform inscription (early written expression) and Babylon is drawn in the middle. Also, other places are mentioned such as Assyria and Elam. Around the centre is a circular waterway described as 'Salt-Sea' and the outer rim of the sea is surrounded with about eight regions. The regions contained marked signs or are labeled with names as 'Region' or 'Island', interestingly the distances are marked between the regions.

Over time maps became increasingly accurate and a universal tool for communication. Regardless of language or culture maps are mostly easy to understand by most people. By the use of scientific tools such as a compass rose, maps would improve as navigation tool. The compass rose was invented around the same time as the Polynesian explorers went on their Voyages. But made it appearances not earlier that the 11th century on maps and charts for a sense of orientation and direction.

The knowledge of aiming

The Babylonian Map shows a clear image of where destinations are located. Although the reading of the tablet is illegible, we can clearly make out the direction of destinations. If you would follow the euphrates towards the mountains other destinations will become able to locate. Similar to the Pythagorean Theorem, if you know two elements you can hypotenuse the third element. In this case identifying two locations makes the observer able to set a path to the desired location.

Landmark wayfinding

The usage of landmarks to navigate originates from the tablet and is still used today for orientation and navigational purposes. As we browse through history landmark maps are commonly used to indicate destinations and have a reference of landmark buildings.

Example of the Roman Empire a landmark map, an abstract map of Europe showing cities, Middle Sea, Middle East and parts of Middle Europe. The landmarks are placed on top of the map as a 3D landmark. This map dates from the high days of the Roman Empire. Image taken from Erroma.

The Image of the City (Kevin A. Lynch)

Kevin Lynch published the book The Image of the City (1960) and described a way for people to mentally map and understand their environments in a logical and predictable way. In his book he describes a the concept of mental maps, a sketch map by a average person about an environment from memory. Within the mental maps he discovered five common elements to indicate whereabouts, destinations and paths. Similar to the early maps.

• Pathways, streets, sidewalks, trails, and other channels in which people travel;
• Edges, perceived boundaries such as walls, buildings, and shorelines;
• Districts, which represent relatively large sections of the city distinguished by some identity or character;
• Nodes, focal points, intersections, decision points or gateways
• Landmarks, memorable/identifiable objects or places which serve as external reference points.

People who move through the city engage in way-finding. They need to be able to recognize and organize urban elements into a coherent pattern. ~Kevin Lynch

Main takeaways

A mental map is one of the most important human elements to 'read' an (un)familiar environments. In order to orientate and navigate we tend to use references from our surroundings and interpret elements to choose the desired path.

A mental map is the human imagination of reality, a map that is different for everyone. According to the mental map we can estimate where other places are places and how we can go. This is our association with the environment, perception and appreciation of this environment.

What is the difference between pictograms and icons?

• Icons are used in a broader sense that can have a free artistic look and feel. For example UI Material Icons represent the various functionalities of an App.
• Pictograms are usually a more simplified version of an icon, which represents for instance a common sense such as toilets, airplane, arrows etc.

The book Piktogramme und Icons is written in German. Don’t let this stop you, because this book is a full on guide on how to design pictograms and icons. Filled with countless examples the book represents everything to learn about pictograms and icons.

Visual language

A single pictogram or icon could represent a single form of communication. A set of pictograms and icons could represent a cross-cultural form of communication. Pictograms and icons are increasingly taking the place of national language communication or supplementing it.

As seen during Covid-19 pandemic, the use of pictograms have been critical to quickly understand what is required and how to navigate.

Design

The book explains on how to get started in pictogram design. Every step of the proces is described:

• Sketching, the rough outline of the pictogram/icon
• What are the characteristics and intention
• How to use a grid design
• About reading distance, line-width
• Positive and negative lines and shapes
• How to design meaningful visual elements universally understood

Examples

The books is filled with countless examples and inspiration designs.

• Vehicle, transport and road pictograms
• Airport pictograms, icons
• Healthcare pictograms
• Olympic games icons
• Universal used pictograms and icons
• and many more

The clear explanation on how to design a pictogram, combined with the many examples makes this book a must-have for any pictogram designer.

Availability

Rayan Abdullah and Roger Hübner lay the foundations for designing unambiguous and simple but not banal sign languages ​​with their standard work, which competently illuminates and consequently explores theory and practice, development and commercialization, the multifaceted nature and future of a language without words: from the toilet sign to the escape route, Prohibition sign to the guidance system, from waste separation to the Olympics. 2D, 3D and on the web.

Unfortunately the book is mostly out of stock. You can search Amazon and the secondary market to get your hands on this amazing book.

Information design is used in many applications, forms and means of expression. Often in relationship with multidisciplinary design aspects to communicate information to people and environments.

Information design

The book Information Design: Research and Practice by Alison Black, Paul Luna, Ole Lund, and Sue Walker is one of the most complete works around information design.

The book covers everything related to information design from wayfinding, map reading, form design, layouts to instructions. This book combines design theories and methods with professional practical case studies from leading information designers around the world.

The book has 4 main parts each with sub-chapters on topics related to the main part. Each chapter is well written and illustrated to research, explain the topic.

Part 1: Historical perspectives

A brief overview of early visualizations of historical time. The invention of statistical graphs. Ship navigation and the history of technical and scientific illustrations. The history part continues with Isotype for information design. And Marie Neurath about designing information books for young people. This part closes off with documents, graphics and text about the history of information design.

Part 2: Theoretical approaches

This part shapes the mind for graphic literacies for a digital age. With a visual rhetoric in information design for multimodality and genre. Interesting chapters in this part are about Interactive information graphics and Social and cultural aspects of visual conventions in information.This part closes off with in-dept research about Textual reading on paper and screens. And how to apply science to design.

Part 3: Cognitive principles

This part goes deeper into understanding information design. Whereas chapters cover topics such as:

• Does my symbol sign work?
• Icons as carriers of information
• Warning design
• Diagrams Chapter
• Designing static and animated diagrams for modern learning materials
• Designing auditory alarms
• Design challenges in helping older adults use digital tablets
• On-screen colour contrast for visually impaired readers
• Contrast set labelling
• Gestalt principles
• Information design research methods
• Methods for evaluating information design
• Public information documents

Part 4: Practical applications

The last part of this extensive work focusses more on design elements and sorting of information. All of the following chapters are interested if you are into wayfinding, urban design and information design in general.

The topics include: Choosing type for information design and how to design Indexing and information design. Interesting research about when to use numeric tables and why covers on how to communicate the information in a effective way for complex and large data sets.

For wayfinding the next chapters give insights on the following topics:

• Wayfinding perspectives
• Designing for wayfinding
• The problem of ‘straight ahead’ signage
• Park at your peril
• Indoor digital wayfinding
• Visualizing storyworlds
• Exhibitions for learning
• Form follows user follows form

The final part resumes on information design & values which explains the LUNAtic approach to information design.

The importance of information design in healthcare and medical information is explained and researched in the following chapters:

• Information design as a (r)evolutionary educational tool and
• Design + medical collaboration
• Developing persuasive health campaign messages
• Information design in medicine package leaflets
• Using animation to help communication in e-PILs in Brazil
• Medical information design and its legislation

For who is this book?

This is such an excellent resource. Covering the complete field of information design and its multidisciplinary aspects of it. Also referred as the Bible for Information Design.

This book is for everybody who wants to learn more about concise and comprehensive information design. How to design for complex applications, how to sort information, what to show and what not to show, and at what time.

From graphic design students to experienced designers, there are things to learn from the book.

Key take-aways include history of information design, understanding the theories behind information design and how to improve the way to communicate from simple to complex topics in a visual way.

Conclusion

The book is carefully researched and put together, a true bible for information design. A recommended buy if you are into learning more about information design, graphic design, wayfinding and structural layouts and design strategy.

There could be somethings said about the consistency of writing throughout the book, although it didn’t bother me while reading topics. From my person experience, I am reading topics upon required to learn something about a topic in information design.

On our website designworkplan we used Google Analytics for collecting visitors data. When we started the blog way back in 2008 it was a good way to find out which content viewers of our website liked and disliked. A user-friendly dashboard to find out important metrics related to viewers of the website.

Google Analytics gave us insights on popular pages and were people visited our website from. This allowed us to target those audiences more and as a result we gained traction to our (design) website. Our content evolves around design, typography and wayfinding. Wayfinding is a design niche that focusses at connecting people to information and environments.

If you want to learn more about wayfinding, please read our page Introduction to Wayfinding.

Over time Google Analytics grew in complexity to an extend we have a hard time understanding the metrics shown in the dashboards.

Google Analytics back to the future

In the beginning Google Analytics was plain and simple, the right fit for our design content. As a content creator we are interested in how visitors perceive information on our website. Information about popular pages, demographics and referral sources are meaningful for establishing an understanding of what visitors are looking for.

Privacy and data collection

Over time we realized Google used our collected data for their benefits. Although Google says to “never” sell any personal information. The collective gathered information through Google Analytics is an immense source of valuable information about browser behaviour online. Not only it provides information on topics people are interested in, it also gives information about reading time, bounce rates and related information people are interested in. Maybe Google doesn’t use the information gathered from our website, but sure it can create a broader sense of what people in general are interested in.

As Google remains to control most of the internet search queries and related internet services such as advertising. Google can combine Analytics and Adwords to maximize their profit ratio. In other words, we believe as Google has a tremendous amount of information from the Analytics part of their database. The Adwords part of Google will benefit from this information, as they are familiar with what people search for and what related information people would be interested in.

Our most popular posts on the blog

Over the years we have published many articles on the blog. Via our visitors data tracking we could see these are our most popular posts:

• A arrow symbol collection, with over 1M (Million) downloads! 56 Free Arrow Symbols & Icons
• The guide into color contrast for sign and wayfinding design. Signs and color contrast
• A free collection of 50 common used symbol signs. Symbol Sign Collection

Our series about typography did very well over the last years, including the following articles:

• An example collection of typeface usages with Arial. Arial is everywhere
• Another collection with FF Meta typeface examples FF Meta is everywhere

Our book series are popular with the following reviews:

• A comprehensive book about wayfinding by David Gibson. The Wayfinding Handbook
• The industry standard for learning about wayfinding by Per Mollerup. Wayfinding > Wayshowing

Over the years we have continued our writing, consider looking at our blog to learn more about wayfinding.

Seamless reading experience

We are wayfinding and information designers. Our core services evolve around information, people and places. Connecting information at the right time and place. As we are browsing the internet, the reading experiences are mostly dreadful. Pop-ups, reminders, boxes, ads, etc.

At our website we want people to enjoy our content, without having to read privacy policies and forcing visitors to click "Accept" buttons. We want to create a seamless reading experience without distractions.

The brilliant website How I Experience Web Today is a fantastic example of most browsing experiences today. So familiar, yet so disappointing experiences.

According to research the average internet user spends ~3 hours online every day, visiting anywhere from 5 up-tp 100 website each day. Imagine the time lost for accepting all those cookies each and every day.

Recently it came to our attention that Google Analytics is in conflicts with European regulations and is not fully GDPR complaint. In relationship to the cookie, accept privacy terms and UX issues it got us to rethink the analytics part of our website.

From past to present

As we want to comply to European guidelines regarding data collection and to create a seamless reading experience, we started to seek an alternative for Google Analytics.

As also found Google Analytics was found illegal in an Austrian court decision. The details of that decision can be found here

From here our search began looking for an alternative way to collect visitors data at our website. We have tried other different analytics services, which include:

• Matomo analytics, a self hosted analytics service. Comes with many features and is free to use. We have found installing the software and dashboard somewhat complicated to use.
• Statscounter, great alternative. The dashboard has a good UX design and the service has many features to track visitors behaviour. Statscounter is an anonymous web tracking service which is good to become GDPR compliant. The paid version starts at $19,- per month.
• Fathom, a very user friendly interface, cookie-free and GDPR proof with anonymous web tracking. Starting at $14,- per month. ($140,- p/y)

Our research was plain simple, trying out the services as mentioned above for ~14 days. The experiment gave us insights on what we wanted to see in our analytics, useful metrics, ease of use, GDPR free. As running websites is NOT our daily focus, we found out our needs are UX and ease of use based. Meaning a single dashboard solution, main metrics and great UX design. In our quest for the Google Analytics alternative we landed at Fathom Analytics.

Use Fathom Analytics

Our basic requirements are formulated as following:

• GDPR Proof and anonymous pageview tracking
• Fast loading script, by-passing ad blockers and no cookies
• Easy to use dashboard, in one overview
• Information about pages, average time on site/page and traffic sources
• Information about devices, browsers and countries
• Possibility to track specific actions or events on webpages (easy funnel)
• Track multiple websites in one dashboard/account

As we deploy multiple websites, a single dashboard solution is ideal to gain overview insights on performance.

Reading experience & privacy

Our website and content creation is focussed on providing niche information for design, typography and wayfinding. In our opinion Google Analytics has become a complex platform with too many functionalities. We understand that professional website creators and builders could use Google Analytics to its full potential. We simply want to put out great content and gather information about the visitors to our website.

Our goal is provide a visitor to our website a seamless reading experience and enjoying our content without annoying pop-ups or related privacy issues.

From now on forward we have disabled Google Analytics from our websites and are fully compliant with European regulation around collecting information from visitors on our website.

Fathom is a paid service which collects anonymous data from visitors on our websites. We are using a $140,- yearly plan for collecting visitors data from our websites.

Full disclosure

We work as a designers for Google Offices, where we develop and create wayfinding solutions for their visitors and employees. We respect Google for their vision and the way how they organize their workplaces, people and environments. At our website (designworkplan) we have chosen to use fathom for reasons stated in this article. We are not paid or sponsored by usefathom. If you want to support us, please use our affiliate link below.

Final thoughts

This post is different from our usual design content, we wanted to be fully transparant in the way how we collect visitors data from our websites. Consider thinking about the way you collect visitors data at your website(s).

If you are planning to use Fathom, consider using our referral link (highly appreciated) Use Fathom referral code CCPSXY

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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