The Bilocating Designer

Faced with the dilemma of belonging to two seemingly disparate design communities—a critical design school and the commercial UX design profession—Dan Eames embarked on a journey to uncover their commonalities and shared histories. As the Bilocating Designer, Eames existed simultaneously in both realms, moving across the spectrum of design practice to discover a common ground: diagrammatic design language. Nearly 150 design diagrams were sourced from academic literature, commercial resources, blogs and social media whereafter each specimen was analyzed and distilled down to its fundamental graphic elements. The resulting compilation contests whether designerly ways of knowing and thinking can truly be encapsulated in a series of shapes and arrows, or if it all merely amounts to diagrammatic design jargon.