Information Design and Emotional Maps
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been re-reading some of the old information architecture books from the mid- to late-90’s… from Clement Mok’s Designing Business, to Richard Saul Wurman’s Information Architects. It’s great seeing their early efforts, most of which are still amazing… they brought such order to very chaotic information. Subway maps, road atlases, information graphics, business process graphics… Tons of great examples and learning experiences in those two books.
As I’ve been looking over those, I’ve realized that my focus on information design has been mostly around electronic spaces, web, email, mobile, software… but it can also be about phone books, maps, directions to and from stores… it’s really a pervasive discipline. And if you look at some of today’s media, still an under-used one. 8-)
Even art can have an information design aspect to it: CNN profiles an interesting art project showing snapshots of people’s emotional 
experiences as they move through a city. Not just the streets mapped with a GPS, but how a person feels, heartrate, respiration, blood pressure and notes of what they did and saw.
“There are different ways of mapping the city that aren’t strictly about the practicalities or financial sensibilities that we usually guide our urban planning with”
At the artist’s site, you can download some data for Google Earth, and see lots more examples of UK cities mapped.
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