Making information understandable

part of my job as a designer is to make information understandable. the beauty of design is that we can take a fairly complex set of ideas, and organize it into something that you can look at and quickly understand all the main ideas. (well, good design does this anyway. it's a work in progress for me.)

i worked on these 2 diagrams recently for International Student Ministry. the first diagram shows the level of satisfaction of a person who encounters transitions in moving from their home to a foreign culture, and back again. in both cases, there is a cycle of fun, flight, fight and fit responses that happen throughout the experience.

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this second diagram is a widely used model that helps us see what happens whenever anyone is in a situation where more than one culture is involved (which is nearly all the time, actually). it shows that you can either approach these situations on a green line (desired) or red line (not desired). how you approach will largely effect how you respond, although there are certain aspects that are inevitable.

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we made both of these diagrams into 2-sided bookmark that will be sold at an upcoming conference. i'm looking forward to helping communicate these two ideas to people so that they can learn and grow in engaging new and different cultures. as people who are called to be a witness to the world, these are important things to know and understand!