78 Designing Information: Less Decoration, More Discipline

Despite the industry declaring minimalism dead every other year, it’s been a staple since the Romans got fed up with Egyptian hieroglyphs. Minimalism will always have a place, and with the current tidal wave of visual garbage, the stability and calm of a clean layout are more of a necessity than a trend.

I originally built this company history timeline template for the usual suspects: presentations and websites. There is no fluffy design and nothing spins or animates, it is just a clean, ruthless presentation of relevant data.

When I design minimal infographics, these are the constraints I force upon myself:

• Order and Allowances: Keep the text, images, and icons in a layout that doesn't induce panic. When making a template, I have zero control over how much copy a user will try to shove into it, so I have to design with generous allowances. But when doing custom work, the goal is to make a specific, awkward word count look completely intentional.

• A Hostile Palette: This is easy for me, as I rarely use more than two colors anyway. The trick here is using black and white photos. Full-color images scream for attention and distract the viewer from the actual information—which, presumably, someone paid good money to have read.

• Forced Visual Guidance: This is crucial if you actually want people to read the timeline. The thin red lines aren't just decorative; they trap the eye. They force the viewer to digest the year, the image, the subheading, and the text as a single unit before letting them move on.

  
  

Templates are fine for a quick fix. But if you are an art director or an agency holding a brief that requires making sense of a company's history without putting the board to sleep (something I regularly navigate for clients like ACCA)an off-the-shelf layout only goes so far.

If you need custom data visualization that actually respects the viewer's time, I am available for commissions.