Message Journal, Issue 5: COVID-19 SPECIAL ISSUE Capturing visual insights, thoughts and reflections on 2020/21 and beyond...

If there is a theme running through the Message Covid-19 special issue, it is one of caring. Of our own and others’ resilience and wellbeing, of friendship and community, of students, practitioners and their futures, of social justice, equality and of doing the right thing. The veins of designing with care run through the edition, wide and deep. It captures, not designers as heroes, but those with humble views, exposing the need to understand a diversity of perspectives when trying to comprehend the complexity that Covid-19 continues to generate. As graphic designers, illustrators and visual communicators, contributors have created, documented, written, visualised, reflected, shared, connected and co-created, designed for good causes and re-defined what it is to be a student, an academic and a designer during the pandemic. This poignant period in time has driven us, through isolation, towards new rules of living, and new ways of working; to see and map the world in a different light. A light that is uncertain, disjointed, and constantly being redefined. This Message issue captures responses from the graphic communication design community in their raw state, to allow contributors to communicate their experiences through both their written and visual voice. Thus, the reader can discern as much from the words as the design and visualisations. Through this issue a substantial number of contributions have focused on personal reflection, isolation, fear, anxiety and wellbeing, as well as reaching out to community, making connections and collaborating. This was not surprising in a world in which connection with others has often been remote, and where ‘normal’ social structures of support and care have been broken down. We also gain insight into those who are using graphic communication design to inspire and capture new ways of teaching and learning, developing themselves as designers, educators, and activists, responding to social justice and to do good; gaining greater insight into society, government actions and conspiracy. Introduction: Victoria Squire - Coping with Covid: Community, connection and collaboration: James Alexander & Carole Evans, Meg Davies, Matthew Frame, Chae Ho Lee, Alma Hoffmann, Holly K. Kaufman-Hill, Joshua Korenblat, Warren Lehrer, Christine Lhowe, Sara Nesteruk, Cat Normoyle & Jessica Teague, Kyuha Shim. - Coping with Covid: Isolation, wellbeing and hope: Sadia Abdisalam, Tom Ayling, Jessica Barness, Megan Culliford, Stephanie Cunningham, Sofija Gvozdeva, Hedzlynn Kamaruzzaman, Merle Karp, Erica V. P. Lewis, Kelly Salchow Macarthur, Steven McCarthy, Shelly Mayers, Elizabeth Shefrin, Angelica Sibrian, David Smart, Ane Thon Knutsen, Isobel Thomas, Darryl Westley. - Coping with Covid: Pedagogy, teaching and learning: Bernard J Canniffe, Subir Dey, Aaron Ganci, Elizabeth Herrmann, John Kilburn, Paul Nini, Emily Osborne, Gianni Sinni & Irene Sgarro, Dave Wood, Helena Gregory, Colin Raeburn & Jackie Malcolm. - Coping with Covid: Social justice, activism and doing good: Class Action Collective, Xinyi Li, Matt Soar, Junie Tang, Lisa Winstanley. - Coping with Covid: Society, control and conspiracy: Diana Bîrhală, Maria Borțoi, Patti Capaldi, Tânia A. Cardoso, Peter Gibbons, Bianca Milea, Rebecca Tegtmeyer, Danne Wo

Graphic designer as curator: from a problem-solver to a problematiser

Problems brought on by climate change, ageing populations, and pestilences like COVID-19 are causing the world to become more troubled than it ever was, and notably, a small city-state like Singapore is not spared from these calamities. As more government and social agencies are seeking creative solutions to tackle these problems and improve people’s quality of life through design, this study asks: How can Singapore’s graphic designers interrogate their conventional role as problem-solvers and go beyond the use of Design Thinking, which is a problem-solving approach, to address challenging social problems that are deemed as “wicked”? In seeking an answer to this central questions through the lenses of theory and praxis, this research responds to the call of an interdisciplinary approach by the Ministry of Education (Singapore) and explores the concept of transdisciplinary advocated by the West to fulfil its aim of outlining an alternative role for local graphic designers, which would allow them to approach seemingly boundless socio-political challenges in a more sustainable manner. In theory, this study is guided by a research framework that first traces the genealogy of design as a problem-solving activity, then explains how societal problems are “wicked” and why Design Thinking might not be sufficient for graphic designers to address them. Next, with more Singaporean institutions and organisations expressing a strong interest in an interdisciplinary approach in learning and practice, this study then turns to a different field – curatorial practice – in search of an alternative role. Paulo Freire’s and Michel Foucault’s theories on problematisation are explored, to shed light on a feasible transdisciplinary approach that graphic designers could adopt to effect positive social change. Acknowledging that the concept of “graphic designers as curators” is not new, this study investigates how it has been applied by various graphic designers to connect art and the public, establish the concept of “meta design-authorship”, and expand graphic design practice. Through Christopher Alexander’s theory of an unselfconscious and self-adjusting process, Critical Design emerges as a form of problematisation that allows graphic designers to keep cycling back to complex design problems critically and relentlessly via the medium of exhibitions. In practice, the examination of three case studies – Metahaven, Supernormal and Atelier HOKO, outlines the characteristics of a new generation of graphic designer-curators based overseas, and more importantly, in Singapore. All things considered, the findings of this study produce new knowledge that contributes to the field of graphic design by putting forward a revitalised notion of graphic designers as curators who are also problematisers in theory, offering a feasible transdisciplinary approach that allows local graphic designers to positively impacts to their communities in a sustainable manner. Keywords: Graphic Designer, Problem Solver, Critical Design, Curator, Curatorial Project, Problematiser and Problematisation.Doctor of Philosoph