IIID Laureates

Rob Waller
Rob Waller is an information designer with over forty years experience of practice, research and teaching. His company, Information Design Unit, developed clear information for government agencies and well known brands such as Vodafone, BT, Barclays, British Gas and many others. He has a doctorate for work on information design theory, and has held academic posts at the Open University, the University of Reading, and the University of Leeds, UK, where he is a Visiting Professor. Rob was the founder of Information Design Journal in 1979, chairman of the Information Design Association and President of the International Institute for Information Design (IIID) between 2017 and 2023. He was director of the Simplification Centre, from its foundation in 2008 to 2024, advocating for clear information design, and running the Information Design Summer School, now organised by IIID.

Decision of the IIID General Assembly of 21 September 2023, online

Professor Clive Richards MPhil PhD(RCA) FRSA
Clive Richards is Professor Emeritus of Information Design at Birmingham City University, UK, where he was Director of Research for the Birmingham Institute for Art and Design until 2016. He was President of the IIID from 2009 until 2017, during which period he led its organisational and management re-structuring.
His professional life began in the Technical Publications Department of Dunlop Aviation as a technical illustrator, following which he combined free-lance graphic design practice with a university teaching, research and management career. He researched and developed computer-aided drawing applications at Lanchester Polytechnic, Coventry, working in collaboration with the Royal College of Art, London, and the Computer Aided Design Centre, Cambridge, UK. Examples of his pioneering computer graphics from the 1960s and 70s are in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum and have featured in V&A exhibitions, including Chance and Control staged in 2018.
His PhD research into diagram design at the Royal College of Art has informed subsequent work in the field, for which he coined the term ‘Diagrammatics’ in 1980. He has published on this topic and related research, most recently contributing a chapter to Information Design (Routledge, 2017). His latest publication, as editor with nine other contributors, is titled Elements of Diagramming (Routledge, forthcoming 2019).
Professor Richards is a member of various national UK bodies concerned with Higher Education and research in art and design. He carries out his graphic design and research work from his Coventry studio in the centre of England.

Decision of the IIID General Assembly of 28 October 2017 in Riga, Latvia

Peter Simlinger
Peter obtained a degree in architecture from the University of Technology Vienna. After postgraduate studies at the Bartlett, University College, London, he founded what is now IMPACT Design, a company with a prime focus on traffic & transport specific information systems. This subject area he also looks after as an Editor of the Information Design Journal (IDJ), published by John Benjamins, AmsterdamIn.
Peter Simlinger is Past-President of Graphik-Design Austria (GDA) and originator of its successor Design Austria (DA).

He founded the International Institute for Information Design (IIID) and led it for nearly 40 years until 2014.

Decision of the IIID General Assembly 5 September 2015, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK

Prof. Robert O. Swinehart
Bob was Professor Emeritus of Design and former Head of the Communication Design program at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Lifetime honorary member of the American Center for Design, Chicago. Past President of the Graphic Design Education Association. Member of the Editorial Board of the Information Design Journal.
Prof. Swinehart’s design work is included in the permanent collection of the US Library of Congress and has been exhibited by the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the American Center for Design, the Type Directors Club in New York, the Biennale of Graphic Design in Brno, Czech Republic, and (invitational) the 3rd International Design Exhibition sponsored by the Japan Design Foundation in Osaka, Japan.
Speaker at IIID Vision Plus 1, 2, 5 and 12. Organized IIID Vision Plus 4 “The Republic of Information / Design for Global Communication” at Carnegie Mellon University, 1998; IIID President 2003 – 2009.

Bob passed away in December 2020.

Decision of the IIID General Assembly of 20 June 2009, Hotel de la Sorbonne, Paris

Prof. Rune Pettersson, Ph.D., Stockholm, Sweden
Until 2008 Professor of Information Design at Maelardalen University, Eskilstuna. Founded the “Institute for Infology” as a private research and consulting company, 1990. Adjunct Professor of the Faculty in the New Media and Global Education Graduate Program at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, Appalachian State University, North Carolina, USA, 2012. (Until 2012) author of numerous papers and books. Speaker at IIID Vision Plus 4, 5, 6, 8 and 11. IIID Vice-President 2000-2006.

His publications on Information Design are freely available on Research Gate.

Decision of the IIID General Assembly of 20 June 2009, Hotel de la Sorbonne, Paris

Image: Rune Pettersson, ResearchGate