What is Information Design?
Graphic design isn't just about making something look good or selling stuff people don't need. It must also effectively communicate with its target audience and help them gain a good understanding of a message.
That might be a brand communicating who an organisation is, its ethics and values; a campaign encouraging someone to act or donate funds; a publication sharing research; or an infographic making complicated but important information easier to grasp.
For purpose-led businesses, charities and educators, good communication can be particularly important, especially if it is to explain something complex, challenge the status quo, change behaviour, raise awareness or encourage people to make a positive difference.
Information design is an approach to graphic design that focuses on making information clear, understandable and accessible.
It involves thinking carefully about the information itself, the people who need to use it and how design can help them navigate, understand and act on it. We're constantly bombarded with information, so how it's presented can make a considerable difference.
For me, Graphic Information Design is part of Graphic Design. It's the foundation that has shaped how I approach my work throughout my career.
What does an Information Designer actually do?
A good graphic designer should make decisions about information:
What should people notice first?
What needs to stand out?
How should different pieces of information relate to each other?
What can be simplified?
What could be confusing?
And, perhaps most importantly, how can we make this easier for the audience?
My degree in Graphic Information Design provided a foundation for naturally thinking about these questions alongside the creative decisions. It's not about adding more information. It's about helping people make sense of the information that's already there.
And when you're communicating about climate change, biodiversity, social mobility, education, health or sustainable development, that's an important job.
Graphic Information Design is part of good graphic design.
Every piece of graphic design tells a story! A logo reflects who you are, showcasing your personality, values, and ethics. A campaign shares a message that aims to inspire action. Reports highlight evidence and findings, showing the impact of your work. Publications can dive into detailed stories that fully absorb the reader.
An infographic might explain something that would otherwise take several pages of text.
The visual design needs to support that communication. I've always tried to consider the relationship between the information and the person receiving it.
How to create hierarchy?
What should someone notice first?
How to make something easier to navigate?
What could be confusing or inaccessible?
How can visual design help someone understand without needing someone beside them to explain it?
These questions are relevant to almost every piece of graphic design I create. Seeing Graphic Information Design as part of graphic design has allowed me to approach my creations with clarity and simplicity.
Why does information hierarchy matter?
Imagine opening a 70-page report. There's a lot of valuable information inside, but every page is presented in the same way. Headings aren't particularly clear, important statistics are buried in paragraphs, and there's no obvious route through the document. The information may be excellent, but without clear structure and proper formatting, it becomes challenging to read and absorb.
Information hierarchy is like a friendly guide through your content! By using clear headings, subheadings, nice typography, plenty of spacing, engaging images, helpful charts, eye-catching pullout quotes, and a well-structured page, you can make it easier for readers to grasp what's important and find exactly what they’re looking for. A good report shouldn't make people work harder than necessary to find the information they need, even if it is complex information.
And if you're a charity trying to demonstrate your impact to funders, an educator explaining a complicated subject, or a sustainable business communicating its environmental progress, your audience shouldn't need a degree in your subject to understand what you're telling them.
Information design and accessibility
Accessibility is a fundamental part of good information design. It's easy to think of accessibility as something that happens at the end of a project – checking colour contrast or ensuring a PDF has the right technical structure. Those things matter, but accessibility should start much earlier.
Who is the target audience?
Could someone have a visual, motor or learning disability?
Could they be using a screen reader, magnification or keyboard navigation?
Is English their first language?
Could they be reading on a phone?
Are we using language that people can understand?
Are we relying on colour alone to communicate something?
These considerations can influence everything from typography and colour to layout, language and navigation. The aim isn't to remove unnecessary barriers so that more people can access, understand and use the information. For organisations working to create positive change, that matters. If the people you need to reach can't understand your message, even the most important information can fail to have the impact you intended.
Turning complex information into something people can understand
This is where I particularly enjoy the combination of information and visual design.
An annual report might contain pages of financial figures, impact data and research; a sustainability report could include carbon emissions, targets, progress and technical terminology; a charity might need to communicate the findings of a research project to funders, policymakers, supporters and the people directly affected by the issue; an educator might need to explain a complex subject to students (of all ages) with very different levels of knowledge and confidence.
The challenge is to organise the complexity, explain it and make it easier to navigate.
That might involve an infographic, a diagram, a carefully structured report, a visual story or simply a better approach to typography and page layout.
What does this have to do with sustainability?
I'm an advocate for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which provide a framework for tackling some of the world's biggest social, economic and environmental challenges.
The 17 goals cover everything from Quality Education and Good Health and Well-being to Reduced Inequalities, Responsible Consumption and Production, Climate Action and Life Below Water.
They're also a good reminder that these issues don't exist in isolation; everything is connected: climate change affects health; education affects social mobility; poverty affects access to healthy food and safe housing; biodiversity loss affects the ecosystems we depend on for food security.
Good communication is key to helping everyone see the connections between ideas! Whether you’re tackling one Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) or a few, design can really make a difference. It can take complicated thoughts, data, and goals, and turn them into something easy to understand and relate to. When we make our content clearer, more accessible, and meaningful, we invite more people to join the conversation!
Good information design doesn't tell people what to think
It helps them think. When information is presented clearly, people can make better-informed decisions. They can understand an issue, see connections, compare information and decide what they want to do next without being overwhelmed. This is particularly important for organisations working on complex social, environmental and educational issues.
If you're trying to explain climate change, improve social mobility, communicate research findings, demonstrate your impact or encourage more sustainable behaviour, simply presenting more information isn't necessarily the answer.
The right design can help people see why that information matters.
Graphic Information Design and my work
This approach has shaped my work across almost 30 years of graphic design.
I work with purpose-led businesses, charities and educators, particularly those working in sustainability, climate, education, wellbeing, animal welfare and social impact. I create infographics, reports, publications, campaigns, presentations, branding and digital communications that help organisations communicate what matters.
The projects may be very different, but the underlying questions remain similar:
Who needs to understand this?
What do they need to know?
What do we want them to do with that information?
How can design make that easier?
That's what Graphic Information Design means to me.
Not a separate discipline from graphic design, but a way of thinking about the information, the audience and the purpose behind the design. It's about taking something that might feel complicated, technical or overwhelming and finding a clearer way through it.
As I've said before, good design isn't just about how something looks. It's about how well it works – and, when you're trying to make a positive impact, how effectively it helps people understand, engage and act.