Richard Saul Wurman (born 1935 in Philadelphia) is an American architect and graphic designer. He is considered a pioneer in the practice of making information understandable. He has written and designed over 80 books and created the TED conferences. In 1976 he coined the phrase information architect out of his reaction to a society that daily creates massive amounts of information, but with little care or order. He created the popular ACCESS travel guide books which were innovative in their use of mapping content by neighborhood. Simple, but effective use of colored text allowed the reader to quickly separate, locate and evaluate restaurants, museums, parks, and other categorical destinations. The design concept was based on how we seek information, in this case, by location. With this series of books, Wurman firmly established the purpose of information architecture. He is also a 2004 AIGA Medalist.