listed design conferences: Concept of a web-application that gathers discussed topics from worldwide design conferences and makes contemporary and historical design explorable.

This work arose from the course »Contemporary Design« lead by professors Tom Duscher and Frank Jacob. The goal was to create a modern design taxonomy.
Initially it was necessary to explore what areas of modern design are even able to be classified. After extensive research it became clear fairly soon that the area of modern design is not readily assessable.
The impossibility of a complete classification already begins with the selection of sources. One could include sources such as theoretical design publications, winning contributions from design competitions, student projects, works of renown agencies or other designers, discussions in design blogs, etc. the list goes on.
Furthermore the term »design« is in no way clearly defined, rather it is subject to differential interpretation. Design is divided into many fields. Classification in the existing areas of design would fail just on the basis of the sheer amount and due to the fact that this is a constantly growing field. A further difficulty lies in the supposedly neutral classification of what is considered »modern«. There are dominant styles and defining personalities in design but which does not necessarily imply their contemporary qualities. Rather, this is often a result of propagation through mass media.

We decided to gather data about international design conferences taking place worldwide. One reason was because the ideas being presented at international design conferences had already been through an internal selection process which would automatically increase the quality of the data. Additionally the topics which arise at design conferences often make waves of influence which flow outwards. Our application should make it possible to capture this flow graphically. Also, as design conferences often have inter-disciplinary speakers from differing fields, they can influence one another and new crossover connections can be made. It is in this way also assured that the topics discussed at conferences will be received by a larger audience. This is only partly reconstructable with contents of a purely written form.
Our realization that contemporary design is an ever changing process lead us on one hand to show the most current conferences but on the other hand allow the possibility of choosing individual timeframes of conferences.
Another decisive reason was that design conferences always deliver identical parameter. These being: the event title, the speakers, the topics, the date and location.
These are actual facts and guarantee the greatest possible neutrality. Herewith all necessary information will be generated by the visitors of the site, but can be corrected in the editing process.
The page offers a large number of different design currents. In order to guarantee the representation of all these styles as neutrally as possible we decided on a very reduced presentation and using mainly typography. We are aware that there is no perfectly objective presentation form.

The functionality focuses around a calender of events and the application can also be used in this way. Furthermore informations in the form of links have been made available for every term. In this way the page can serve as a starting point for further internet research. It is also possible to initialize new connections within the page due to the flowing transitions which produce endlessly new constellations. As mentioned above, it is possible to track and compare the development of topics and persons through time with the help of graphics.
listed does not claim to show what contemporary design is, rather refers to conferences where this question is discussed. Because of the accumulation of compiled data over a long period of time, trends of certain design currents can be tracked retrospectively.

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»List«: Discover new crossover connections between topics, persons, events and places, or get directly informed about the latest events. All four areas are divided into columns. The font-size represents the number of times the selected word occurs.
The »List« prototype provides an insight into the way the navigation works. Pass through the columns and observe how the navigation gently follows your cursor.

»History«: Follow the stream of information and take the generated topics and persons with you into the »History«. You can compare the development of the topics and persons on the timeline.
The »History« prototype contains an examplary constellation of persons and topics. Get a feeling for the smooth movement by adjusting the »Timeline«. Glide through time by dragging the date across the horizontal line to see how topics develop.

Contribute information via »Entry«: Add a new event. Insert the discussed topics, the speakers, the event including the title and the location. All information consists exclusively of these four areas and is dependent on time.

»Search« function: With the search function one can find a specific term in the active column. The matching terms are highlighted and scrolled underneath the search field.

Timeline: By selecting a specific time span and location on the timeline, the corresponding information will be shown. Every dark line represents an event, each time a word is selected the equivalent events are highlighted blue.

Font-size of terms: The font-size represents the number of occurrence (»Topics«, »Persons«, »Locations«, »Events«). The more often in the adjusted time-span a topic is discussed or the more recent an »Event« took place, the larger the font-size. This applies always outside of the controller-object (Navigator/Timeline) and inside the controller-object as long as no term is locked (see lock-in of terms).

Selection of terms: After selecting a term it moves between controller-object as well as all connected terms in the other columns. For example, when a person is selected, all conferences, their venues, as well as the topics spoken of move inbetween the navigator and timeline.
Selected terms provide further links to the web. This way you can move from a selected topic to an online encyclopedia, from a selected person to their homepage, from a selected event to its website and from a selected location to an online map-application.

»Lock in« of terms: The font-size of the words that are connected to the selection (see Selection of terms) keep the original indication (see Font-size of terms) until the selected term is locked in by a second click on the word. Following this, the font-size of any connected words change in accordance with the locked word. For example, topics discussed more frequently by locked person are then displayed in a bigger font-size. And so, the selection can now be narrowed down.
If an additional word is selected, the others words from that column disappear from inbetween the navigator and timeline. The locked word still remains and the words from other columns also remain if a further connection exists. For example, if a person is locked and a certain topic gets selected, any other topics move out of inbetween the navigator and timeline, as well as the events and venues where the topic has not been discussed.

Graph of »History«: »History« visualizes the presentation of topics at events and the popularity of speakers by means of graphs over time. For example, the more often a certain topic is discussed, the greater the amplitude. If the person or topic no longer appears in the selected time span, the graph flattens to nothing. New graphs grow from the timeline and edge out older ones. The graph below the timeline corresponds to the overall amplitude.
The font-size corresponds to the respective amplitude.

Project by: Martin Golombek | Andi Kern | Michael Schmidt-Voigt
Contact:

Supervision: Prof. Tom Duscher | Prof. Frank Jacob
Art college: Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design

Thanks to: Martin Brecht