The Structure of Information
How should information be laid out?
The thoughtful organization of information deepens our understanding.
Up to the present day, we have employed various methods to convey information. These methods have served as ways to communicate everyday events concisely. Many of them developed into what are known as “visual languages,” grounded in visual expression and abstraction. Today, we find ourselves once again searching for new forms of expression. This new approach is—
Vision and Spatial Activity
Considering changes in human behavior and visual expression—
The Transition from Two Dimensions to Three, and Then to Four
Concise information has long been conveyed through spoken language; slightly more elaborate content through written text; and more complex events through narrative. Many of the traces left by these practices exist in two-dimensional forms, such as documents. However, to reveal the depth of information and the relationships between its elements, we are moving into three-dimensional space, and further into four dimensions, where dynamic change is introduced—and beyond.
How, then, should such forms be recorded and passed on to future generations?
The Formation of Structures and Their Reconfiguration
Planes, solids, and spatial composition—
Design as Form
Up to the present day, we have created a wide variety of tools and objects through technology. The methods by which they are constructed have taken the form of planes and solids, as well as further transformations derived from them. At the foundation of this act of making lies what may be described as expression through Euclidean geometry. Even in much of today’s production, this remains unchanged: objects are expressed as points, lines, circles, as well as planes, solids, and curved surfaces. How, then, can their transformations—and the processes through which they change—be expressed?
Information and Vision
Modes of expression such as painting, and cognition—
Expression as Iconography
As means of conveying various events, we have long pursued iconization and abstraction. These practices took shape as what is known as iconography and, in the contemporary context, have further developed into visual languages such as pictograms, Isotype, diagrams, and information visualization.
How, then, do icons function today?
Signs and Symbolization
Signs seen on street corners and symbolized landscapes—
Everyday Information Perception and Its Challenges
An overabundance of signs, along with a proliferation of marks and symbols expressed in countless forms, has led to confusion and misinterpretation. To date, design has often been approached on the basis of human—namely, biological—vision and cognition, drawing on the innate sensory capacities with which we are endowed. At the same time, however, it has been noted that an excessive emphasis on simplification and brevity alone may result in insufficient information. While many people praise this complexity as a landscape rich in character, others criticize the excessive presentation of information as “noisy Japan.” Ultimately, what kind of environment are we seeking?
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Typophoto and Grid
Classification of Information
The concepts of “typophotos” and grids appear in Moholy-Nagy’s works, including Painting, Photography, Film and The New Vision. The former involves treating letters and text as equivalent to images and paintings, while the latter involves evaluating letters, drawings, photographs, and other elements as textures and considering each as a distinct visual quality. Furthermore, he explains that these elements should be separated and organized through the use of grids. These ideas foreshadow the early fusion of traditional text and imagery with photography, film, and dynamic forms of expression.
Form and Expression
Form Expression
Computer graphics and 3D applications are convenient tools that allow shapes to be easily represented; however, there inevitably exist forms that cannot be expressed through these methods.
In addition, when physically constructing three-dimensional objects, difficulties arise in terms of expression and fabrication. This indicates that there are forms and structures in nature that we have not yet been able to recognize.
Time, Perception and Expression
Dynamism and Kineticism
We grow day by day through time and perception, living in the present. Yet, whether in writing, painting, film, or sculpture, the moment a work leaves our hands, it becomes part of the past. Even when attempting to predict the future, a fundamental question arises: what unit of measurement should serve as the basis for such predictions?
In fields such as product manufacturing, cost estimation and evaluation extend beyond material calculations to include time and labor costs, from planning through execution. Although these are referred to as predictions of the future, they are sometimes subject to error. Their foundations lie in past performance and accumulated data.
In other words, predicting the future depends on the past. How, then, have we expressed these elements?
Color Expression
The Newton–Goethe Debate and Contemporary
Expression
Modern color theory was shaped by Newton’s Opticks, Huygens’ wave theory, which interpreted light and color in terms of wavelength, and later
by Young’s wave experiments. In contrast, Goethe—who challenged Newton’s theories—and Itten, who taught at the Bauhaus, proposed an alternative theory of color based on harmony and human perception.
Today, works such as Albers’s Design in Color are being republished and are receiving renewed attention. Harmonious color and color schemes are fundamentally concerned with perception through contrast. In our daily lives, which are saturated with countless colors, we are thus confronted with a central question: on what scale should we perceive and evaluate color?
The Structure of Design
The Long Process of Design Realization
How have contemporary forms of Aristotle’s theoria, praxis, and poiesis been shaped, and what kind of evolution have we actually undergone? Although the tools we use, our environments, and our overall convenience appear to have greatly improved, what seems to be revealed instead is a loss of theory itself. In other words, have we truly become a society that feels happier as a result of advances in technology and services? In recent years, concepts such as Social Design and Inclusive Design have attracted increasing attention. Yet, despite these developments, the very foundations of our world seem to be destabilizing, and addressing these challenges remains far from easy. What kind of approach, then, is design—one that grows and adapts in response to changing circumstances?
1.Social Design: An approach in which citizens participate in solving and advancing issues such as welfare, education, and community development.
2.Inclusive Design: An approach that embraces diversity—such as the elderly, people with disabilities, and foreigners—by designing from multiple perspectives to address a wide range of needs.
Reconsidering The Human Use of Human Beings
Technology has emerged from everyday acts of making, taken shape as fine art, and further developed into design for manufacturing through modern machines and computers. Throughout this process, there has been ongoing debate over how to position the human presence. In other words, discussion has long centered—alongside religious and cultural frameworks—on whether to construct a world that treats humans as exceptional beings, or to regard them as merely one part, one element, among many: alongside other animals and within the broader environment of the Earth itself.
Today, amid various disasters, unforeseen accidents are also occurring with increasing frequency. To what point, then, should we look back, reflect, and return?
Examining IT and DX—
Since the 1970s, computers that came into our hands were understood as devices that, through programming and related means, enabled users to articulate the rationality of their own ideas and ways of thinking. In other words, the personal use of computers and related devices functioned as tools for organizing the thoughts and logic of their users.
It may seem that we have progressed from Information Technology to Digital Transformation, and further to Artificial Intelligence. Yet ideas surrounding AI—that is, artificial intelligence—have existed for a long time. Computers and robots were once regarded as tools that assist human action and creativity, help organize logic, or take over tedious, repetitive tasks. However, we may now be entering an era in which they are beginning to operate autonomously.
