graphic design

Photo by Joe Angeles / WUSTL PhotoWashington University art students forge common ground with businesspeople.The perception is that art and business speak different languages, inhabit different worlds, and “orbit different suns,” says Jeff Pike, Dean of the School of Art at Washington University in St. Louis. But in reality, the visual arts play an active role in business culture, he says. The Washington University School of Art surveyed how artists and businesspeople view each other and came up with some important insights.

Photo courtesy of National Eye Institute, National Institutes of HealthVisual perception changes as eyes age.Graphic design can be a matter of life and death. Literally. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, more than 40 percent of Americans aged 65 and over use five or more different medications each week, making unintended drug interactions a major contributor to an estimated annual 180,000 fatal or life-threatening adverse drug reactions. Yet drug labeling is a kind of typographical Wild West, says Ken Botnick, professor of visual communications in the School of Art at Washington University in St. Louis. “Drug companies are required to divulge certain types of information but there are no requirements in terms of how accessible that information is made,” Botnick explains. “Typically, decisions about the way information is organized — the hierarchy of presentation, the size and clarity of type — are simply afterthoughts.” Medical information design is just one of the issues to be explored as part of “Visual Design for an Aging Population,” a national symposium Botnick is organizing in March 2004.