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Blind Maps and Blue Dots: The Blurring of the Producer-User Divide in the Production of Visual Information
On the ever-decreasing distinction between those who produce digital data, those who design its visualization and those who use it as a new form of cartography Mapmaking has been an essential part of human development since ancient through the art of cartography, people have been able to record geographical explorations and communicate spatial information in relation to themselves and the land around them, using fixed points and lived experiences as references. In the digital age, maps are just as likely to convey the relationships between individual users and amorphous data as they are to depict the relationships between human beings and the stars and planets above. Blind Maps and Blue Dots examines the impact of the omnipresent computer on current understandings of data visualization and graphic design, in which the boundaries between producers and users of maps has become increasingly blurred.
This text is structured around three contemporary mapmaking Google Maps' location function, referred to as the Blue Dot; a global map that displays the physical activity of users of the fitness app Strava; and the “Situation in Syria” maps series, a regularly updated map of the Syrian conflict designed by an Amsterdam teenager. Like every other field, graphic design must evolve to reflect the modern world and the needs of its people. Blind Maps and Blue Dots offers a new approach that acknowledges and even encourages the breakdown of the binary between producer and user.
This text is structured around three contemporary mapmaking Google Maps' location function, referred to as the Blue Dot; a global map that displays the physical activity of users of the fitness app Strava; and the “Situation in Syria” maps series, a regularly updated map of the Syrian conflict designed by an Amsterdam teenager. Like every other field, graphic design must evolve to reflect the modern world and the needs of its people. Blind Maps and Blue Dots offers a new approach that acknowledges and even encourages the breakdown of the binary between producer and user.
- GenresDesign
192 pages, Paperback
Published June 8, 2021
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 25, 2024
Joost Grootens is an accomplished graphic designer, educator and artistic research professor. Studio Joost Grootens is an exceptionally interesting interdisciplinary design studio that has published numerous experimental books and visual studies. This research project by Grootens discusses the disappearance of boundaries between creators and users in digital graphic design and uses cartography as a reference.
As postulated in the introduction, the author asks: what contemporary mapping practices could reveal about the developments in graphic design. The following subsection, introducing the methodology, presents number of interrelated concepts in logical order: data, information, visualization, and visual strategies. The focus on cartography is then explained, introducing the concept of post-representational cartography. Chapter then concludes with a more introspective view, mapping the author's own creative journey.
While the beginning is quite smooth and adequately focused, the subsequent body of research itself is quite meandering. The previously introduced terminology and conceptual frameworks remain largely unused, while the flow of new concepts, topics, and ad hoc arguments are introduced – and just as quickly abandoned – throughout the text.
In practice-based research, reliance on subjective experience is characteristic, but in this case, the roles of the researcher and the author-autobiographer tend to cancel each other out. For example, the extensive contemplation on the similarities between graphic design and cartography seems unnecessary – especially considering that already provided terminology (information visualization, visual strategies, etc.) could easily support interdisciplinary approach. The desire to match two separate visual disciplines appears to stem more from the author's personal creative biography (the gains and pains of interdisciplinarity) than a well-founded argument.
It is consistent that at the beginning of each thematic block, the author presents information from an intersubjective researcher position, but in the summaries and conclusions, it mostly shifts to the first-person and "to me (it is)" arguments. From the standpoint of research (including practice-based research), it would be more fruitful to take the opposite direction.
Considering the above, it is somewhat inevitable that, by the final chapters of the monograph, the discussion has become so holistic that the summary chapter can be seen as a micro-manifesto on ambivalence, unlimited potential of design, and the relative subjectivity of everything. It is up to the reader to decide whether such a finissage satisfies them or not.
The elegant book design is an integral part of the author's presentation, as emphasized in the text and evident by the look. The book lacks conventional illustrations, the treated topics are accompanied with various infographics. Despite being somewhat limiting, this solution is innovative and thought-provoking, aligning well with the topic and creating the appearance of a conceptual whole.
As postulated in the introduction, the author asks: what contemporary mapping practices could reveal about the developments in graphic design. The following subsection, introducing the methodology, presents number of interrelated concepts in logical order: data, information, visualization, and visual strategies. The focus on cartography is then explained, introducing the concept of post-representational cartography. Chapter then concludes with a more introspective view, mapping the author's own creative journey.
While the beginning is quite smooth and adequately focused, the subsequent body of research itself is quite meandering. The previously introduced terminology and conceptual frameworks remain largely unused, while the flow of new concepts, topics, and ad hoc arguments are introduced – and just as quickly abandoned – throughout the text.
In practice-based research, reliance on subjective experience is characteristic, but in this case, the roles of the researcher and the author-autobiographer tend to cancel each other out. For example, the extensive contemplation on the similarities between graphic design and cartography seems unnecessary – especially considering that already provided terminology (information visualization, visual strategies, etc.) could easily support interdisciplinary approach. The desire to match two separate visual disciplines appears to stem more from the author's personal creative biography (the gains and pains of interdisciplinarity) than a well-founded argument.
It is consistent that at the beginning of each thematic block, the author presents information from an intersubjective researcher position, but in the summaries and conclusions, it mostly shifts to the first-person and "to me (it is)" arguments. From the standpoint of research (including practice-based research), it would be more fruitful to take the opposite direction.
Considering the above, it is somewhat inevitable that, by the final chapters of the monograph, the discussion has become so holistic that the summary chapter can be seen as a micro-manifesto on ambivalence, unlimited potential of design, and the relative subjectivity of everything. It is up to the reader to decide whether such a finissage satisfies them or not.
The elegant book design is an integral part of the author's presentation, as emphasized in the text and evident by the look. The book lacks conventional illustrations, the treated topics are accompanied with various infographics. Despite being somewhat limiting, this solution is innovative and thought-provoking, aligning well with the topic and creating the appearance of a conceptual whole.
Displaying 1 of 1 review