Design and Digital Humanities

Dig­i­tal human­i­ties is about many things: the infi­nite archive, pro­gram­ming, markup, style, knowl­edge pro­duc­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and graphic design. I believe that graphic design is a key ele­ment in under­stand­ing and doing dig­i­tal human­i­ties because design is a core part of our mod­ern expe­ri­ence as cit­i­zens and as human­ists. Under­stand­ing the ele­ments of design, from color to typog­ra­phy, is an impor­tant skill for dig­i­tal human­ists to acquire. Of course doing so requires us to become famil­iar with the ele­ments of design. One of the best ways to do so is to view good design.

One of the best graphic design­ers I know as well as a good friend is Hiller Hig­man. Hiller’s work is unique and orig­i­nal, but his work is also (so it seems to me) derived from the the every­day world around us, both related and unre­lated to design, as is our own work as human­ist schol­ars. How we view the world around us and our human­ist schol­ar­ship through design can teach us some­thing about how dig­i­tal tools are shap­ing the very act of doing human­ist schol­ar­ship. Exactly how is a ques­tion I do not nec­es­sar­ily (yet) have an answer to, but I believe that it is true. I hope that dur­ing the Human­i­ties 340, we can come to an answer or maybe bet­ter yet, develop a bet­ter ques­tion to ask about the rela­tion­ship between human­ist schol­ar­ship and design.

For the time being … take a moment to view Hiller’s port­fo­lio—NBC, Bridger, Web—in addi­tion to his inspi­ra­tion blog @ North­side #3.

(Shame­less plug: if you are look­ing for a graphic designer look no fur­ther than Boot­leg Enter­prise . I need say no more, his work stands on its own.)