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The convergence between factors such as a growing accessibility to new tools, channels, and approaches towards communication, and their encounter with the increasing levels of specialization and complexity characteristic of our society, unveils new and stimulating scenarios for the design community.

The dissemination of technical, scientific, social and environmental content, has shifted from the traditional and more consolidated channels to new communication environments, shaping a totally new information space. This environment is populated by networks of discrete units of information: concise communicative elements that combine graphics, typography, illustration, animation and narrative in new informative formats.

This emerging communication landscape is taking the shape of a sophisticated eco-system, where a variety of hybrid informative units collaborate and complement each other. Within this scenario, new forms of 'visual explanations' capable of combining the transmission of complex contents with the engagement of the public's attention and curiosity, respond to a growing demand of direct participation and to the idea of networked communities based on the sharing of information.

The 2CO Conference aims at addressing the exciting interdisciplinary challenges that lay in front of a growing international professional and research community that on a daily base confront with the task of making our world more accessible through good design.

2CO addresses questions that lie in the very core of the information society, by focusing on three main areas of interest:

• informative-animation
• interactive data visualization
• info-graphics
• informative environments