| Richard Saul Wurman | |
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| Born | March 26, 1935 Philadelphia, Penn. |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Architecture, information architecture, design |
| Institutions | 19.20.21; TEDMED |
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Richard Saul Wurman (March 26, 1935) is an architect and graphic designer. He is considered a pioneer in the practice of making information understandable.
He has written and designed over 80 books and created the TED conferences (of which he remains associated only with TEDMED). In 1976, he coined the phrase information architect out of his reaction to a society that daily creates massive amounts of information, but with little care or order. He created the popular ACCESS travel guide books, which were innovative in their use of mapping content by neighborhood. Simple but effective use of colored text allowed readers to separate, locate and evaluate restaurants, museums, parks, and other categorical destinations quickly. With this series of books, Wurman firmly established the purpose of information architecture.
Wurman has been awarded several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Grham Fellowships,and two Chandler Fellowships. He was awarded AIA Fellow in 1976 and the ADC Hall of Fame in 2003. He was a 2004 Medalist of the AIGA, which honored him as a design conference impresario.[1] He is a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council.[2]
His current project is 19.20.21. an attempt to create and standardize measurement tools as a means of understanding cities.
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Education
In 1959, Wurman earned his Master of Architecture degree with highest honors from the University of Pennsylvania. He was awarded a Doctorate of Fine Arts by the University of Arts in Philadelphia and an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Boson.
Books
- 33: Understanding Change & the Change in Understanding
- Access Travel Guides
- Information Anxiety (1989)
- Follow the Yellow Brick Road - Learning to Give, Take, & Use Instructions (1992)
- Information Architects (1997)
- Information Anxiety2 (2000)
- Understanding USA
- USAtlas
- N: The Newport Guide
Quotations
On creating the term "information architect": "I thought the explosion of data needed an architecture, needed a series of systems, needed systemic design, a series of performance criteria to measure it." — Richard Saul Wurman[3]
"If you don't ask, you don't get."
References
- ^ Richard Saul Wurman, 2004 AIGA Medalist.
- ^ Design Futures Council Senior Fellows http://www.di.net/about/senior_fellows/
- ^ InfoDesign: Understanding by Design | Special on R.S. Wurman
External links
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