Graphic design research: a cause for the concerned

There is an immediate need to clarify and develop the role of graphic design research for the theoretical underpinning of graphic design education. A report that accompanied the 2014 UK Research Excellence Framework (REF2014) described ‘the intellectual and theoretical underpinning of graphic and communication design’ as ‘generically weak’. We report on progress about a project designed to identify and map graphic design outputs from REF2014, involving both a data analysis of the ‘Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory’ submissions, and focus group research with graphic design academics designed to elicit feedback on the emergent themes being addressed by the data analysis exercise as well as broader concerns. The aim has been to identify the nature of graphic design outputs submitted to the REF audit. In this paper, we provide a response to this state of affairs from a community of graphic design educators concerned about the perception of research in the discipline. Keywords: Graphic design research, Graphic design education, Research Excellence Framework, Graphic Design Educators’ Networ

The challenges for graphic design in establishing an academic research culture: lessons from the Research Excellence Framework 2014

This paper examines why graphic design has struggled to establish an academic research culture, despite significant gains in design research over the last 20 years. It considers the criticisms levelled against graphic design research submitted to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF2014). Through analysis of publicly available data, we identify a low volume of graphic design research adhering to traditional academic, non-practice-based forms, and concentrated amongst few institutions. Results confirm graphic design is yet to establish an academic research culture that accords with its widespread standing in higher education. We identify the absence of consensual nomenclature, lack of confidence and exemplars with practice-based graphic design research, the uncertain expectations of research audits, lack of venues for dissemination, heavy teaching loads and few established career pathways for research. In response we make a series of recommendations towards a sustainable graphic design research change agenda

Buying Time

Commissioned essay for Eye looking at how the controversial increases in tuition fees will pave the way for alternative forms of education, particularly the increase of short, vocationally-orientated courses. The potential impact of such courses and of the general shift towards a culture of 'student as consumer' is considered, and how this is in conflict with many of the values that hold a genuinely creative education together

Digital Kanthas: print waste as ornament

This article reflects upon a body of practice-based research that considers the re-use of images found in printers' waste sheets, and how these can suggest forms of narrative. It specifically investigates the potential of such waste to be the basis for new ornamental forms that could reflect upon cultural exchange between India and the west. Citing examples from the packaging of fireworks and beedis, the author reveals how print and advertising act as powerful signifiers of cultural change and how, in turn, these can be exploited by designers interested in working in cross-cultural contexts. Utilising waste sheets salvaged from printers' works in southern India, and drawing from examples from contemporary music sampling and indigenous Bengali embroidery, the author seeks to re-connect emerging opportunities afforded by digital technologies with traditional craft practice

Beyond Babel: Visualising the territories of graphic design

Many of us were taught to consider the ‘history’ of graphic design as essentially linear, a series of ‘ages’ that conform to a process of maturity. Being reborn as ‘graphic design’ in the ferment of modernism allowed commercial or ‘applied’ art to finally break free from any lingering connection to the ‘dark arts’ and the feudal world of printing. And so western graphic design progressed through early professional conquests and a postmodern ‘identity crisis’ before finally arriving into the digital, globalised arena of Bourriaud’s ‘Altermodern’. This paper begins by describing a series of student-led seminars that aimed to introduce both graphic design history and the professional and philosophical context it now operates within. The author reflects upon the difficulties of adopting the linear model when considering contemporary practice, arguing that such a simplified, narrow summary is flawed and unable to fully represent the complex landscape of practice that graduates actually enter. As an alternative, the author will consider how graphic design might be represented in more inclusive terms, accommodating complex and multivariate factors shaped over time by shifting ideologies, technologies and professional contexts. Attempting to represent these through the symbol system of a map, the author seeks to acknowledge an organic, complex arrangement of ‘regions’ that reveal the histories, habits, values and traits of the ‘peoples’ and ‘tribes’ that co-exist, sometimes peacefully, within the wider graphic landscape. The author will argue that a more inclusive perspective is now critical to accommodate professional and cultural diversity and help design educators break free from the loop of outdated and meaningless arguments that so easily distract and confuse. Accepting such a picture could, for some, lead to a reconsideration of delivery, a shift from institution-centred, tool/task orientated timetables towards a pluralistic, culturally sensitive, student-centred model that reflects the differing forms of intent and intelligence that operate in the design community. To be truly effective, such a model would seek to identify individual intelligences and aim to connect these to appropriate forms of practice in the professional world. The author will reflect upon a subsequent restructuring of curriculum that has followed this thinking and propose that such a model is well suited to the needs of future reflective practitioners

Graphic Design Reading Lists: How should we choose texts to guide students through the info-blizzard?

Commissioned by Eye magazine this article questions the role and relevance of the reading list within the undergraduate graphic design curriculum. Set within the context of a rapid expansion of design publishing and online resources the traditional role of the academic as 'gatekeeper' is seriously challenged

Education and Practice: An Unbiased Travellers Review

According to what many of us were taught at school the shape of graphic design is rather like a line, a series of ‘ages’ that conform to a process of maturity. Being reborn as ‘graphic design’ in the ferment of modernism allowed commercial or ‘applied’ art to finally break free from any lingering connection to the ‘dark arts’ and the feudal world of printing. And so western ‘graphic design’ moved on, through early professional conquests and a postmodern ‘identity crisis’ before finally arriving into the digital, globalised arena of Bourriaud’s ‘Altermodern’ where death, according to some, now lies in wait. This paper begins by describing a series of student-led seminars that aimed to introduce both graphic design history and the professional and philosophical context it now operates within. The author reflects upon the difficulties of adopting a linear model in when considering contemporary practice, arguing that such a simplified, narrow summary is flawed and unable to fully represent the complex landscape of practice that graduates actually enter. In comparison the author will propose an alternative ‘landscape’, a complex arrangement shaped by differing intentions and revealing differing forms of ‘intelligence’. Attempting to represent this complexity through cartography the author will propose an organic, complex arrangement of ‘regions’ that reveal the histories, habits, values and traits of the ‘peoples’ and ‘tribes’ that co-exist, sometimes peacefully within the wider graphic landscape. The author will argue that such an approach is necessary to accommodate professional and cultural diversity and help break free from the loop of outdated and meaningless arguments that so easily distract and confuse. Accepting such a picture could demand a radical reconsideration of delivery, a shift from institution-centred, tool/task orientated timetables towards a pluralistic, culturally-sensitive and student-centred model that reflects the differing forms of intent and intelligence that operate in the design community. To be truly effective such a model would seek to identify and enhance individual learning styles and aim to connect these to appropriate forms of practice in the professional world. Yet for many institutions, any such move away from the monolithic roots of graphic design education would be hindered by the demands of modularisation and credit frameworks that only serve to confirm an obsession with structures built with units and boxes. The author will reflect upon a subsequent restructuring of delivery that has followed this thinking and propose that such a model is well suited to the needs of future reflective practitioners

An Unbearable Lightness?

This article considers various notions of `beauty' and how these have informed the creative and critical processes of graphic design, specifically typography. The author considers how the Renaissance revival of Greek mathematics to support a `universal beauty' was gradually unpicked by Enlightenment thinkers such as Descartes, Kant and Hume, and how this process has subsequently shaped modernist and postmodernist attitudes towards `beauty'. From our current vantage point it could be argued that `beauty' should now be considered a redundant concept; however, design schools and studios continue to make value judgements dividing the `beautiful' from the `ugly'. On what basis are these judgements made and are they still valid in a pluralistic society? Is it possible that we now have a new sensibility, a different notion of beauty? Reflecting upon important questions raised by the American designer and writer Steven Heller in his controversial essay `The Cult of the Ugly' in Eye magazine in 1993, the author proposes that 14 years on from the article, we can indeed witness a new aesthetic sensibility, shared but not universal, rooted in loss yet also `found'

Re-tooling the culture for an empire of signs

Focussing upon rapidly changing professional practices in the South indian printing town of Sivakasi, the author considers striking parallels between the notion of creative destruction and the impact of globalisation and digital technologies upon vernacular Indian graphic design

Roll on’s, butt toners and fantastical gadgets: Guilt-tripping in the supermall.

Derived from the latin manifestum ‘to make clear and conspicuous’ a Manifesto can be deployed as a declaration of intent, a refining and defining of ideals, an outpouring of dissent, or an ideological break with the dominant, the archaic and the obsolete. This paper reflects upon the designers enduring obsession with the manifesto as agent for change. It specifically focuses upon the First Things First manifestos of 1964, 2000 and 2014, which have established a locus for rumination and heated debate about the role of graphic design in advertising. It considers the changing contexts in which each has been presented and the recurring themes of guilt, anger and vocational frustration. Whilst notable detractors, including Michael Beirut and Andrew Howard have highlighted certain flaws and hypocrisies the First Things First model continues to serve as a rallying point for the disaffected. Looking towards possible parallels within contemporary Indian graphic design the author questions whether such a model - detached from the economic, social and political contexts - could ever be valuable as an agent for change