- Everything is designed. Most people have little understanding of the design process, but we all live with its results: a sign on the highway, an explanation of a medical procedure in an emergency room, a diagram on how to build a piece of furniture, a chart that shows us our assets, a ballot, a data-driven decision. Not everyone realizes this. Many people assume that things just emerge in their finished visual form, like Athena springing, fully armed, from Zeus’s forehead. This may explain why design isn’t always as good as it needs to be.
Joel Katz is an information designer and authority on the visualization of complex information, photographer, and teacher. A Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, he was a winner of the Rome Prize for 2002–2003; named a Fellow of AIGA Philadelphia in 2002; and awarded an Honorary Life Membership in the International Pediatric Nephrology Association in 1980. He lectures widely, both in the United States and in Europe, and teaches information design at The University of the Arts and Philadelphia University. Katz holds a BA Scholar of the House with Exceptional Distinction from Yale College, where he won the Strong Prize in American Literature for his photography and writing on Mississippi in 1964, and BFA and MFA degrees in graphic design from the Yale School of Art. His work is in the collections of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and the Museums of Modern Art, New York, Tokyo, and Kyoto. His photography has been exhibited in the United States and Europe. Katz is the coauthor of Brand Atlas, with Alina Wheeler, his business partner in Katz Wheeler Design (1980–1992), also published by John Wiley & Sons; and The Nature of Recreation, with Richard Saul Wurman and Alan Levy (MIT Press). He is married to Trish Thompson, an artist; they have one son and live in Philadelphia. www.joelkatzdesign.com www.joelkatzphotography.com For design consulting and speaking inquiries:
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