This site doesn't work on a mobile phone held vertically. Please turn it sideways.
This site doesn't work on a mobile phone held vertically. Please turn it sideways.
I am an information designer in the UK, who has worked on everything from airport information to lottery tickets, from pharmaceutical directories to travel guides... bank statements, contracts, timetables, wayfinding systems, gas bills, user guides, books, forms, tax information.
My first job was with a university research group looking at learning from text. As the only designer alongside a psychologist, a linguist and an educational technologist, I felt I had to explain why design was important, and how it helped readers. That was in 1974, and I’m still trying to do this 50 years later.
I’m particularly interested in the relationship between typography, page layout and language – in how a graphic structure frees readers from the linearity of language and allows them to read and reread in whatever order they choose. In how it allows writers to create texts in which cohesion doesn’t just rely on words alone. And in how a graphic structure can support higher order literacy skills such as comparing texts, assembling evidence for a decision, seeing the big picture.
Information design involves words and design, and the main information design agencies have always employed both writers and designers. Over my career I have moved between: academic environments where the challenge was to explain how language and design relate in theory; and design agencies where writers and designers worked together on projects.
If you really want the detail, there’s a CV, a client list and some publications on my website.
Rob Waller September 2025
