I recently designed and developed a portfolio website for a friend of mine who also happens to be a very talented, up-and-coming special events photographer.   The final design of this site is very clean and modern-looking, drawing focus on the photography rather than the site design itself.  It’s a departure from earlier design concepts and the previous site layout.

Different ways to “see” health information: infographics.

Moreover, Google apparently has a new tool called Google Public Data Explorer, which is meant to support different ways to visualize and present data.  Instead of simply reciting facts and statistics, or displaying a generic line or bar graph, you can now jazz up data and transform them into something that can be more relevant, contextual, and something of which folks can relate.  Well, at least that’s the idea.

For more reference on learning and thinking about how to effectively present information, there is always Edward Tufte himself. A snapshot:

For the past year or so, I’ve been following this movement and call for applying design thinking into business.  Although this is different point on design, this is a great site that challenges designers to reconsider how they think and approach design as it applies and relates to the world.  (It also demonstrates, through the site’s many slideshows, some examples of how graphic design can be used to be informative and instructional.) It’s a call to action for designers to be more actively engaged in thinking about how to design and what to design, and how the processes and outcomes can affect the world.

Taking away the debate of whether or not it should be a designer’s responsibility or role to involve his or her work for these types of social, economic, and environmental issues, I find it rather inspiring to see how we can expand our perspectives of what we do, what we are “expected” to do in a given profession, and imagine and ultimately, act upon greater, far-reaching, positive change.