Curtis’ Blog

If you’ve ever caught yourself saying “we need to hire a graphic designer for that!” it’s possible you’ve missed the point entirely. Perhaps unfair, perhaps more colloquial than accurate, the term “graphic designer” has often become synonymous with “the guy or girl who makes things look pretty.” But pretty is

Apple founder Steve Jobs famously lived by a mantra often attributed to Leonardo da Vinci: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Regardless of who coined the phrase, its message is poignant: simplicity isn’t easy, but when achieved, people will become attracted to its sophisticated appeal. The principle of simplicity applies to

At the most fundamental level, successful communications must grab a person’s attention. But attracting someone’s attention doesn’ts necessarily happen automatically—rather, attention is a commodity you earn from people by resonating with how they reason, how they feel, and how they subconsciously react. Effective attention-grabbing requires that you, the architect, understand

When you think like an architect, you recognize the power of how you shape information affects they way they make choices. Architects know that the collective combination of floorplans, wayfinding signs, entrances, lighting, courtyards and so forth affect how people determine to move about buildings. As an information architect, you

If you have ever visited Riverfront Park in Spokane, Washington, you undoubtedly had an experience with the “garbage goat,” a copper and brass artistic sculpture famous for its internal vacuum mechanism. Perhaps more successful than any garbage can ever created, this goat sculpture actually encourages children and adults alike to

As you design information with the idiosyncrasies of human brains in mind, you become an architect that constructs messages in ways that best appeal to people. Industrial designer Dieter Rams famously articulated the Ten Principles of Good Design. While his brilliant declaration was about physical objects, the same principles should

World renown cognitive scientist Donald Norman—author of Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things—once made a profound argument: “The emotional side of design may be more critical to a product’s success than it’s practical elements” (5). Basically, how people feel about what they are using may be more

Most designs include text and, therefore, all text should be designed. If you haven’t thought about it much before, realize it now: every font, every capital letter, every point size, every line length you insert into a document is a design choice. As an information architect, it’s your responsibility to

Our eyes are powerful. Designing your communications to tap into that power can make your message far more impactful. John Medina, author of Brain Rules, suggested that vision significantly trumps all senses and that the majority of our brain’s processing power is spent on what we see. “Visual processing doesn’t

While design can sometimes feel complicated because you’re always trying to adapt to the nuances of your particular audience’s personalities, values, motivators, personal tastes, and so forth, most human beings have a few similar qualities in regards to how they actually process information. This is good news for you! The