Report 1
Designing universal knowledge
Gerlinde Schuller
Who is collecting the world’s knowledge?
How are knowledge archives structured and designed?
Who determines the access to this knowledge?
The globalisation and the communication possibilities that the Internet offers advance a mentality which moves away from
the local and regional towards the international and universal. Collections of knowledge, such as archives, encyclopaedias, databases, libraries, also follow this trend. They are engaged in
a race against time in both the technological and creative area. Their clearly formulated aim is to establish a complete and up-to-date collection of current human knowledge.
The report examines the definition of ‘universal knowledge’ and the various approaches in collecting, editing and designing knowledge. Light is shed on historical milestones such as the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert as well as on Wikipedia and the different Google archives. The rapid development in the field of information technology increases the complexity of data and the speed with which knowledge is collected. This poses a challenge to information designers in terms of editing and design.
The systematic and professional collection of knowledge has always been influenced by economic and political interests and presented as a social and society-changing act. The book critically elucidates these aspects as well as the forms of manipulation and censorship which knowledge storages have never been able to completely evade.
Gerlinde Schuller investigated the subject in interviews with Richard Saul Wurman, John Maeda, Nigel Holmes, Wim Crouwel, Paul Kahn, Jean-Noël Jeanneney, Rop Gonggrijp, Marion Winkenbach, Hannah Hurtzig and Martin Alberts.
The book also includes essays by Alex Wright, Willem van Weelden, Markus Frenzl and Femke Snelting.
17 x 24 cm, 304 pages, English,
with a large amount of images
Report 1 will be published in autumn 2008.
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Report 2
Designing breaking news
How do infographics communicate world news?
What power do designers of news have?
When and how are news stories manipulated?
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Report 3
Designing world projections
How do maps influence our view of the world?
Who designs new world projections?
Which role do maps play in political and social conflicts?
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Concept and Editing
Gerlinde Schuller
Information Design Studio, Amsterdam (NL)
Published by
Lars Müller Publishers, Baden (CH)