Diagrams, designers, conspiracy theorists and the defence industry

I spend a lot of time drawing diagrams to think about things and communicate things to other people. This could be illustrating how data moves between two systems, the transactions in a complex supply chain or simply – and more critically – the quickest route to the nearest pie shop.

My diagrams usually follow a trade mark aesthetic, consistent with a child let loose with thick crayons on Mum’s new wallpaper. However fast and primitive they may be, I’ve noticed that people generally like diagrams. And the more complex the subject matter and the simpler the diagram, the more people seem to appreciate it.

Communicating complex concepts through diagrams is a popular practice amongst designers, but also conspiracy theorists and defence consultants too. Whilst unusual companions, we share some similarities; we’re self-assured (bordering on arrogant), generally misunderstood (don’t feel sorry for us) and have unique access to lots of crunchy, complicated information. The sort of information that the rest of you wouldn’t stand a chance of understanding without our help. It’s time to wheel out the diagrams.

A diagram illustrating how the different US defence agencies club together buy their pencil sharpeners and missiles. Credit: @DefenseCharts on X
A diagram explaining the components of a command and control system for the US military. Credit: @DefenseCharts on X
A diagram of an onion explaining how to stay alive. Credit: @DefenseCharts on X
A diagram from a conspiracy theorist explaining the global pandemic.
A diagram from a conspiracy theorist explaining that reptiles rule the world.

There’s some seriously heavy, murky subject matter here, from how a country defends itself all the way through to global population control. It’s overwhelming, like a pint of beef gravy for breakfast. Whether we’re interested, understand or indeed believe the information in these diagrams, we can’t argue they have a certain power of communication. Each one cuts through to the raw thinking of the person who made it, however sophisticated or graceless that may be.

Production quality and the democratisation of design

One thing I always struggle to see beyond is the inverse relationship between the information in these diagrams and their production quality. Why does the work from our fellow diagram makers look so awkward, so inelegant?

During the late 1980’s, software packages were released that enabled anyone with a computer, a clumsy hand and an enthusiastic imagination to draw what they were thinking. PowerPoint CDs rolled through one office door, and designers rolled out the other. This was probably a good thing; finally, that impatient executive could draw exactly what they wanted, and the design team didn’t have to put up with their shit any more.

Predictably, this democratisation of design has led to a landscape of diagrams like those above, each with a distinctive flavour rooted in the heavy seasoning of features from software they used. Like a honey pancake cooked in the pan from last nights mackerel, all new things carry a trace of their production process. Especially when you have the aesthetic sensitivity of a doorstep.

No longer drawing important diagrams

No longer drawing the important diagrams, designers have been left to whittle away their time drawing things that try to explain their place in the organisation and their work. And to some degree, trying to justify their place in the world too. Or was that designing their place in the world?

This has led to a broad category of diagrams I affectionately call “Designers trying to explain themselves”. Sit in any kick-off meeting for a project in a large organisation where designers are involved, and I can guarantee you’ll see a diagram titled either “What We Do” or “Our Design Process”. These diagrams have the best intentions and are well presented, but they generally bore or confuse everyone else in the room. I know this intimately because I’ve been responsible for a number of them. They look a bit like the following.

Credit: Koos Looijesteijn – what is design?

Credit: iA – The Spectrum of User Experience
Credit: UX Mag – CUBI: A User Experience Model for Project Success
Credit: Fast Company – The Intricate Anatomy Of UX Design

It’s hard not to find some humour in the diagrams above, as they conveniently place design at the gravitational centre. Of course, in reality this is the absolute opposite of where design sits in most organisations, where it’s a consultative crayon-based role that’s brought in too late, with little leverage.

Whilst no profession is immune to being misunderstood or undervalued, read properly, these artefacts of communication perfectly explain the designer’s crisis: their production quality, what they decide to show (and hide) and the very fact that so many of them exist in the first place.

Perhaps these diagrams do symbolise designers’ frustrations suppressed into circles (always circles). Or perhaps they’re simply the first thing we draw to explain something we’re still trying to understand ourselves.