Wayfinding | Technology | Design | Architecture | Inspiration
Another great assignment from Communication Arts Magazine : Austin-based photographer Randal Ford. Last summer, I spent the day with him as he shot the last twelve portraits for his upcoming book, Good Dog. He's well known for crafting sincere and striking images of his subjects, whether they are animals or humans. Read the Randal Ford... Continue Reading →
So happy to share my latest profile for Communication Arts Magazine about the Austin-based design & branding studio, Canales & Co. I was thrilled to spend some time with owners Jose and Christina Canales to learn about their unique perspective on design. Read the PDF below. Communication Arts, January/February 2020
Thanks to a grant from the Sign Research Foundation, I traveled to Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, and New York to visit ground-breaking digital wayfinding tools in museums, hospitals, airports, and transit systems. The result is Digital Wayfinding Trends: Lessons Learned from Museums, Healthcare, and Transit Experiences. The report illustrates eight case studies and the best practices derived from... Continue Reading →
How do some of the largest and most respected healthcare institutions manage their wayfinding systems? It takes people, processes and tools to keep up with the ever-changing content in these maze-like environments. Under a grant from the Sign Research Foundation, I interviewed seven leaders of wayfinding systems and published their best practices for keeping their... Continue Reading →
For a new business pitch in 2007, I was asked to predict some future wayfinding trends for the year 2015 and I just rediscovered the presentation in my archives. So, how'd I do? Unfortunately, the visual and cognitive clutter of physical signs has not subsided, but their dominant posture has diminished to a secondary role,... Continue Reading →
I often work on larger project teams driven by experiential graphic design firms, UX consultants or research groups. I've had the pleasure of collaborating with: Citizen Research & Design, New York Dyal & Partners, Austin fd2s, Austin Holmes Wood, London Infinite Scale, Salt Lake City Kate Keating Associates, San Francisco Revel Insight, Austin RubensteinTech, New... Continue Reading →
Every day, visitors to the Cooper Hewitt make off with about 30 artifacts each, plucked from the glass cases and archives of the nation’s design museum. From teapots to laptops, the best examples of craft and industry are streaming out the ornate iron doors into New York’s Upper East Side. And before these visitors leave,... Continue Reading →
How do you put "technology" and "democracy" together in a museum? First published in volume 14 of eg, the Experiential Graphics Magazine, a publication of the SEGD, this article explores the changing definition of museums and interactive spaces. Design firms Ralph Appelbaum Associates and TAMSCHICK MEDIA+SPACE GmbH won a 2015 Honor Award for their exhibit... Continue Reading →
This article first appeared in volume 14 of eg, the Experiential Graphics Magazine, a publication of the SEGD. Design firm Gagarin won a 2015 Honor Award for their innovative exhibits. Read the PDF version: eg14_Eldheimar. At a museum dedicated to the wrath of a volcano, interactive experiences help visitors explore the site and make peace with... Continue Reading →
The first time I saw my name in print was in 1992, when I worked as the "desktop publishing specialist" for Technology Research Group, a small semiconductor and software consulting firm led by the visionary Andy Rappaport. My main job was making PowerPoint presentations from Andy's faxed sketches (and getting them made into slides...actual slides...from... Continue Reading →
After a frosty visit to their Toronto studio in February, I wrote a profile of Bruce Mau Design for Communication Arts. To re-imagine a firm without its charismatic leader has been a challenge, but CEO Hunter Tura and his team of Avengers-slash-creative-directors are a amassing a thought-provoking and memorable portfolio of digital, environmental, and branding... Continue Reading →
Congratulations to Chris Calori and David Vanden-Eynden on the publication of the new edition of Signage and Wayfinding Design, their comprehensive guide to environmental graphics. I was very happy to contribute a section on digital trends. Plus check out their beautiful work at C&VE Design.
This article first appeared in volume 12 of eg, the Experiential Graphics Magazine, a publication of the SEGD. Read the PDF version eg12_Internet_Place. “You are here.” The blue dot in the center of your smartphone’s map has a beat of its own, pulsating with each dispatch from the constellation of satellites above. It skips modestly... Continue Reading →
before the chaos began... From Curious Bridges: How Designers Grow the Future Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, The Museum of Modern Art "I love the contamination of disciplines, like performance architecture or bio-art" "The QR tag is so obsolete it's not funny" From Mark Duplass Keynote Mark Duplass, Producer, Duplass Brothers Productions (watch keynote video) "Minor... Continue Reading →
"Are better signs the secret to a successful city?" That's the question Steven Poole poses in The Guardian's Resilient Cities series. As he ambles toward an answer, Poole explores Legible Cities, the physical and digital wayfinding system first built for the city of Bristol and then expanded and refined for Brighton and London over the... Continue Reading →
In 2011, I had the honor of touring the nearly-finished NJ 9/11 memorial with its designer, Fred Schwartz. He died of prostate cancer on April 28th. On a crisp September day, my husband and I met Fred and his wife Tracey at the World Financial Center terminal to take the ferry to the memorial. By... Continue Reading →
Samsung's Galaxy S5 launches next week, but some sly engineers at Chipworx have already dissected one to find the first dedicated heart monitor to be embedded in a handset. (Apple patented a sophisticated heart rate sensor late last year, but Samsung beat them to market.) A number of apps use the phone's camera to take... Continue Reading →
As part of SXSW Interactive's Future 15 sessions, I presented a challenge to my colleagues: Reinvent the Art Museum: a playful and captivating experience for all. Here's a annotated version of my slides and some press from the event: How Technology Can Help Reshape The Museum by ArtandSee Tech and Art Collide as the Museum... Continue Reading →
On Thursday, Google unveiled Project Tango, the next in the company's series of inconceivable, unimaginable, unattainable pursuits. And just like searching every website, mapping the earth, and driving every street -- when Google achieves the impossible, our lives are better for it. Project Tango's humble goal is to "to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding... Continue Reading →
The Cleveland Museum of Art uses digital experiences to reach out to new audiences. http://vimeo.com/60866006 Video used with permission by Local Projects Please read my upcoming article for eg magazine on the innovative use of technology in the museum here
More than 30,000 people attended SXSW Interactive this year, so I'm sure it was one of the most documented human experiences to date. All of the themes have been codified by the digerati: "the year of hardware," "democratization of outerspace," "the next industrial revolution," so I won't add to the litany. Instead, here are some... Continue Reading →
Declarations made at SXSWi, to be recited with aplomb in relevant conversations... 1. "Oil paints were the retinal displays of the Renaissance." Jeff Wilson, artist and frog. 2. "The internet has propagated an endless array of obligations and cellphones are the new cigarettes, addictive and often antisocial." Amber Case, cyborg anthropologist. 3. "You've got to... Continue Reading →
We moved to Austin in March 1994, right after SXSW. That was the first year that the festival expanded beyond music with the "SXSW Film and Multimedia Conference." Starting in 1995, my husband and I participated in "multimedia," (aka interactive) and film for about 10 straight years, watching the festival grow beyond anyone's expectations. I... Continue Reading →
Leslie Wolke consulting+writing 