Designs for Nearly Complete Nuggets
Design Drafts in Powerpoint | Previous Versions | Designer's Notes | Comments | All Nuggets
The visual designs (in powerpoint file above) were done by Elaine Park. Some notes from her on the design choices:
- Algorithms for Understanding Data on a Massive Scale. I love the suggestion of "computer as scientist," as well as the idea of computational models that are "expressive." Here, that is brought to life through a futuristic computer/brain processing streams of data and generating an idea.
- Communication Complexity. It seems to me that the implications of this area are so incredibly diverse and complex, that the most effective way to approach a visual mnemonic is to create as simple a look as possible. Tin cans and a string that can still transmit a stream of data also suggest "what can be computed with various forms of limited computational resources."
- The Computational Lens on Economics. Here's the initial suggestion brought to life. I think it looks great. But let me know if the reference to the magazine is too overt – that'd just be a simple change to the headline.
- Efficient Computation in the Physical Universe. Since this idea will lead to the revision of fundamental theories (in a way rewriting history), this design takes on the feel of a classical text. I thought the image suggestion was great, but if my DIY combinatorial problem is distractingly nonsensical, please let me know!
- Modeling and Exploiting the Power and Parallelism of Tomorrow's Computers. Wanting to focus on the idea of communication between parallel processors while maintaining the futuristic look and feel led me to this. Using simple metallic spheres as stand-ins for processors puts the emphasis on their repetition, as well as the links between them.
- Security with Certainty. This one is certainly easy to explain, as these ideas go. Just a heavy duty safe with extra protection and a solid looking military font to dress it up.
- The Price of Anarchy. I hope the gridlock is effective. The bottom half may stand for the bottom link [in Pigou's 2-node,2-link network].
- Computational Approaches to Modeling the Brain and the Cell. Following the suggestion, a little brain circuit is being grown in a petri dish. Plus a flask on the side for a little extra context.
- Computational Properties of Prediction Markets. I was surprised to find a dearth of images of dollars in fists, which I thought would best represent betting. I did find an image of a racetrack, and one of a silhouette of crowd, and I thought it might work if I went in and drew the dollars there, but I'm afraid it just might get messy. As a proposed alternative, here is a prediction chart that should be instantly recognizable to everyone.
- Making Economic Theory Tractable. A computer overwhelmed by economic data.
- Life-Critical System Verification. Just added the extra text and resized the image for Powerpoint proportions. I threw a darker background in since readability becomes an issue with the added tagline.
Comments
- Uploaded revised versions. The Economics and Parallelism nuggets were completely redone, and there were small changes to the Communication Complexity and Physical Universe nuggets. - Salil
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Previous Versions
Elaine's notes on the old design choices:
- The Computational Lens on Economics. Though the initial image suggestion is a great illustration of the thought, I was worried that a picture of cash might not do the bigness of the idea true justice. Most of the world's money exists as abstract numbers as it is, and I thought that stock charts might not only provide an indication of the broader impact of this idea, but given the state of things these days, maybe pull at a few heart strings too.
- Modeling and Exploiting the Power and Parallelism of Tomorrow's Computers. The practical applications of this idea seem huge and the intention of this design is to capitalize on that appeal. Though the research itself is abstract, the implication of "tomorrow's computers," is a great handle for a pragmatic audience.
- The Price of Anarchy. This is an instance in which the original image idea proved difficult for me to execute. Here is a classic example of the difference between an illustrator and a designer/art director; I apologize for my lack of pen to paper drawing skills. However, I'm hoping this solution begins to get the core idea across. Here is simply a group of gears that could, but will not work together, resulting in performance loss. Another idea might be a set of gears that are interlocked so that they should work, except that one gear is square (which would speak more to selfishness, but I think that this one gets the idea of "anarchy" across more effectively).
- Computational Approaches to Modeling the Brain and the Cell. I wanted very much to bring the original idea to life, but I wasn't sure how to represent a computer scientist unequivocally without resorting to labels (which I think would interfere with the more important verbage). So here, data is being examined in a petri dish, which suggests simultaneously that biologist's research is being augmented by computer science, as well as the idea that the biologist is helping to culture computer science techniques.
- Making Economic Theory Tractable. A computer crying out for help.
Comments:
- Jason: On "The Computational Lens on Economics": This graphic is quite elegant. However, I think references to the stock market are likely to pigeon hole this nugget as "computational finance" which is much narrower than our intention. The proposed nugget is not related to computational finance. Finally, I do not see how this graphic invokes anything computational. I prefer the abstract idea of the original image proposal. I'm happy to be overridden, though.
- KYR: When I view it, the title of "Communication Complexity" is cut off at the bottom. Maybe this is just a property of the version of Office I'm running?
- KYR: All of the taglines end in punctuation except the "Computational Lens on Economics" one so this should be fixed for consistency. Also, the title and tagline of this nugget are repetitive -- I think the tagline should expand upon, not repeat, the title. I agree with Jason that if any of the graphic designs need work, it's this one.
- Lisa: We thought the image for the parallel nugget is rather striking and creative, though we are unsure if the concept of parallelism comes through easily. David Wise had proposed an image (Communication dominates processing). So that could be an idea. We would like to modify the tagline to make parallelism more obvious. Here are 2 candidates we have in mind. 1) "Major changes in the way computers are being built require major revisions in the way computational tasks are modeled: <subtitle> single-processor --> many-processor; Turing/Von Neumann model --> ??" 2) "The evolution of computers from the simple single-processor devices of the past to the complex multi-processor devices of the future requires major revisions in the way computational tasks are abstractly described and reasoned about."
- Shuchi: All of the designs look really great. I agree with Jason that the design for the "Computational Lens on Economics" doesn't bring out the computational aspect and needs some work. If a stock chart background seems preferable to a dollar bill, I would still suggest having a lens cover a part of it, with the inside of the lens having 0s and 1s in some appropriate pattern.
- "Making Economic Theory Tractable" needs a period at the end of the tagline in the image. -- KYR
- what about traffic gridlock for "price of anarchy" perhaps alluding to the connection between traffic in streets and traffic in computer networks? --Jason
- For the price of anarchy nugget, the idea is really to bring forth selfishness and not just anarchy. A bunch of interlocked gears would probably convey it better. A traffic gridlock would be even better like Jason suggested -- everyone can relate to it. In "Making Economic Theory Tractable" the image looks a little bit dark I think. All of the images look really nice! -- Shuchi