Our first installment of Around the Way features Slate Magazine’s series on signage and wayfinding, buried history in the Paris Metro, and how to be the designer you want to be.

In Paris, the main representative of the Art Nouveau style was Hector Guimard. Perhaps most remembered for the avant-garde Paris Metro enclosures designed for the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, he enjoyed a relatively brief period of success. Although a gifted architect and pioneer in the movement, Guimard struggled to maintain prominence through clients and commissions and faded into obscurity.

As designers we are problem solvers. It’s our responsibility to dig deeper into our assignments and find the real underlying problems we are tasked with solving. Part of the puzzle is accomplishing the goals of our clients, the other half is meeting the needs and desires of the end user. We are problem-solving for the users as well, discovering and designing the the best way for them to engage products, services and interactions of all sorts.

There are many associated terms and buzzwords — usability, user experience (UX), human centered design (HCD), user interface design (UI), etc. Regardless of what you call it or which practice you align with, it comes from the understanding that every piece of designed information will have an audience other than ourselves, and that information needs to be designed in a way that meets the audience’s needs. Information design is ultimately a human-centered practice.