GRC 320 Design Methods & Research Fall 2015
Syllabus 3 credits Online Instructor Eileen Medinger, Ph.D. Eileen.Medinger@UNLV.edu 203-770-8463 Office hours: by appointment
Getting Started Before beginning the first research project in Module 1, please: • Review the Syllabus and post one comment or question to the designated discussion forum • Introduce yourself and include your expectations for the class in the designated discussion forum
Introduction Research is essential to all professional practice. Its methods are used to determine and solve relevant problems in a field of knowledge and to contribute to the specialized discourse and theoretical foundations of professional disciplines. In academic terms, the discipline of graphic design is relatively young and, consequently, its position within academia and the roles and standards of its professional designers as researchers, theorists, and ethical practitioners are still being defined. Stakeholders seek to define graphic design from within and beyond the discipline. Interdisciplinary perspectives and the adoption and application of research methods that distinguish academic disciplines support the acceptance of graphic design within the wider academy. As you will see, the processes and concepts of research, particularly qualitative research, are interdisciplinary and broadly applicable. Research methodologies are often specific to a discipline, reflecting its particular nature, structure, and intentions, but in general most research begins with a question or problem that is open to investigation, an intentional procedure or plan for its investigation, with an expectation of new knowledge that can transform or synthesize existing theories and practices, and a means of communicating and sharing its outcomes. When we think about graphic design as a profession, it is more than the study of technique and technology, more than form and function; its practitioners are more than visual problem solvers, content packagers, and experts in aesthetics. Although visual design has is often undertood to be based on intuition and talent, historically, its professional practice has included the testing and implementing of theories and principles of visual perception. These activities are foundational to visual research. Through this research, graphic designers confirm the replicability, reliability, and effectiveness of the concepts, principles, and strategies of professional practice that they use to create the visual ideas, products, and experiences that describe, communicate, or persuade as required. Research is integral to sustaining and developing design practice and process and requires graphic designers to learn and develop abilities to research and analyze. The emergence of postmodern ideas has impacted most aspects of culture and society, changing the way we understand, communicate, and generate knowledge. We will explore ideas of the postmodern as they relate to visual design (particularly in Module 3), graphic design as a professional practice, and their influence on our assumptions, the questions we ask, and even the methods we use to test and explore. Technology has had its own impact, enabling us to perceive new kinds of information and making the invisible perceptible. It has allowed us to manipulate and process large volumes of complex and diverse data and present information in relational, dynamic, and multimedia formats. Researchers/practitioners are developing the methodological tools that leverage the richness and complexity of new frameworks and practices. This is the context in which practice-led research is developing and responding. The first 3 modules of the course focus on the subjects of our visual research: Research about Design, to understand the context, history, perspectives, criticism and practitioners in the field; Research in Design, to test design principles and practices, and to experiment to discover new possibilities in processes, tools, materials and principles; Research through Design, or the development of new artifacts to communicate new knowledge, in new ways, using graphic design principles and practices to investigate and design information, and visualize data.
Module 4 of the course addresses the concepts of the Criteria, Analysis, Documentation of visual research and the problems it investigates. Course Objectives 1. Define research as it applies to visual design 2. Define and apply research terms and methods related to visual design 3. Describe research processes and the principle activities, skills, and ethics associated with it in graphic design 4. Define the relationship between theory and research 5. Construct an effective visual research question or hypothesis 6. Develop and execute a visual research plan 7. Analyze and integrate data 8. Clearly represent information visually
Module 1: Research about Graphic Design
Team Project: See Schedule for due dates Discussion: Visualization of graphic design history Tasks: Determine scope Organization plan Teams Assignments Research plan Questions Data collection Integration/organization Design plan Visual assets Style Integration/organization Other (interactivity, website, video, etc.) Helpful to consider: What is graphic design? When did graphic design begin? Acceptance of graphic design as an academic discipline Who are the influential designers? Why? See Schedule for due date Presentation of progress and group discussions See Schedule for due date Project Presentation & Final Evaluation Attendance is required!
Approximately 25 hours to complete
Design is not the narrow application of formal skills, it is a way of thinking. — Chris Pullman Academic disciplines have their own models for scholarly work, its review, its documentation and dissemination. Each discipline has its own means for defining meaningful research questions, appropriate research methods, analysis, evidence and originality. Academically, the discipline of graphic design continues to mature, establishing traditions of inquiry, scholarship, methods of research, analysis, and communication. These developments ensure the academic rigor of the discipline, the viability of its foundations, the quality of professional training and standards of practice. Noted art director, historian, and author, Steven Heller affirms that design educators must develop curricula that include the mastery of scholarly skills to prepare students for profession practice and the continued viability and progress of the field. With this in mind, the subject to be investigated in this module is Research about Design, with the objective of understanding the context, history, and practitioners of graphic design, as well as the related theories, perspectives, criticism and practices that define and are defined by them. Project: Team Activity: Research about Design In this assignment you will work as a team to create a visualization of the history of graphic design. The product that you develop could be an infographic, an interactive pdf, a website, animation, or any visual asset that aids its user in understanding the history of graphic design, by illustrating and illuminating the salient events, ideas, cultural contexts, practitioners, etc. Research and organizational requirements: 1. Define the scope and span of Graphic Design history • Duration, chronology, people, events, context, technology, dates, etc. • Determine research topics/categories 2. Form groups and choose/assign topics 3. Define research questions 4. Gather information/answer questions 5. Present data Design and create History of Graphic time-line infographic 1. Integrate data into a single time-line 2. Collaborative design plan • Hierarchy, color scheme, style, typography 3. Create/find visual assets Project Objectives 1. Construct effective research questions 2. Describe the research process and the principle activities, skills, and ethics associated with the research process 3. Analyze and integrate data 4. Represent information effectively, visually and verbally
Module 2: Research in Graphic Design Independent or Team Project See Schedule for due dates Review: Whitney Museum Identity (W as a grid) Veerle Pieters Examples System of Oppositions Discussion: Research in Graphic Design As researchers in their discipline, graphic designers test design principles and practices, and experiment to discover new possibilities in their own processes, tools, and materials.
Supposing is good, but finding out is better. — Mark Twain As the profession of graphic design continues to evolve, the role of designer must include responsibilities beyond providing services. Professionals require abilities in research and experimentation to expand the knowledge and skills that define their disciplines, as well as to provide the basis for personal best practice. Everything that the field encompasses, the principles, tools, technologies, software, design processes, media, etc. is an appropriate subject for exploration and investigation. The creation of self-initiated projects should become standard practice as you develop your own voice as a designer. Designer, educator, Steven McCarthy defines this expanded role for the designer as design authorship, and emphasizes its value in offering possibilities for designer-initiated projects, innovative collaborations, and the integration of research, analysis, writing, editing, and scholarship into the educational preparation and professional practice of graphic designers. It allows for subjective approaches, personal expression, and innovative methodologies that are independent of financial or commercial interests, with the purpose of affecting positive social, cultural, economic, and/or political change.
Review: Visual Research, 2nd Edition
Theories about design authorship emerged in the 1990s, as designers were beginning to write articles and create projects that placed them at the center, as initiators of messages, rather than as neutral, objective service providers.
Discussion: Visual Research Experiment Tasks: Determine question/problem Develop a research plan Presentation/design plan assets media
The case studies described in Noble and Bestley’s Visual Research are examples of designer-initiated visual experiments, concerned with deepening and expanding understanding and knowledge of the basic principles and elements of design. They approach visual literacy, the ability to encode and decode, create, interpret, question, challenge, and evaluate visual imagery, from the perspective of practice, to determine how these elements afford visual communication and how they leverage our shared perceptual experiences in practice.
See Schedule for due date Presentation of question/problem and research and design plans See Schedule for due date Project Presentation & Final Evaluation Attendance is required! Approximately 25 hours to complete
Because the foundational theoretical frameworks for visual literacy (and graphic design) reside in the social and physical sciences, their appropriation for research by practicing designers often results in methodologies that are original, individual and specific to the field of graphic design. Project 2: Research in Design In this assignment you may choose to work on your own or with a partner(s) to propose a research question or problem and plan for a visual research experiment or exploration. Use the visual case studies and projects that we have reviewed and discussed as inspiration for determining your topic/problem and plan. Requirements: 1. Define a research question or problem a. Present, discuss, and revise based on feedback 2. Design a research plan a. Present, discuss, and revise based on feedback 3. Design a research plan a. Present, discuss, and revise based on feedback 4. Implement plans 5. Present project Project Objectives 1. Construct effective research questions 2. Design and execute a research plan 3. Analyze and integrate data 4. Represent information effectively, visually and verbally
Module 3: Research through Graphic Design Independent or Team Project See Schedule for due dates Review for today’s discussion: What is critical design? Graphic Authorship Critical design examples: The Spectacle of the Tragedy Taxodus Drone Survival Guide Experimental Eco-Design Dunne & Raby experiments Designs for an Overpopulated Planet Digicars Discussion: Research through Graphic Design This category of visual research seeks to develop new artifacts to communicate new knowledge, in new ways, using graphic design principles and practices to investigate and design information, and visualize data. It is related to the ideas of critical design and authorship addressed in the resources linked above. See Schedule for due date Review: Critical Design projects (See Dunne and Raby’s manifesto on the site for a comparison of attributes of traditional vs. critical design. It may help you to determine your question or problem.) Discussion: Project 2: Critical Design Experiment Tasks: Determine question/problem Develop a research plan Presentation/design plan assets media See Schedule for due date Presentation of question/problem and research and design plans See Schedule for due date Project Presentation & Final Evaluation Attendance is required! Approximately 25 hours to complete
Design… needs to establish an intellectual stance of its own, or the design profession is destined to lose all intellectual credibility and be viewed simply as an agent of capitalism — Dunne & Raby In recent years, graphic design has become a humanistic discipline, according to designer and professor Gunnar Swanson. He proposes that design is about meaning and how meaning can be created. Design is about the relationship of form and communication. It is a field where science and literature meet. It can shine a light on hidden corners of sociology and history. It can disseminate and shape popular values, and provide a path between anthropology and political science. Art and education can both benefit through the perspective of a field that is about expression and the mass dissemination of information. Seen as a discipline, graphic design is capable of generating meaning from its own intrinsic resources without reliance on commissions, functions, or specific materials or means. Its practitioners require self-awareness and the ability to analyze, and think critically, innovatively and independently. As we have experienced in the previous project, graphic designers engage in work that transcends traditional commercial production, pursue projects that are personal, social, or exploratory in nature, and have alternative purposes for visual experimentation. When these purposes are to raise awareness, expose assumptions, provoke action, spark debate, entertain in a challenging way, like literature or film, they are critical design. Critical and speculative design approaches are specially powerful to confront complex problems, to imagine new possibilities, and to derive their implications, with the goal of generating new visions and new ways of dealing with the unknown and the ambiguous. It can create friction, dilemmas, debates questions and cultural change. Through our readings and discussions, we should have a better understanding of the essential characteristics of a critical design approach. Critical design is often compared with conceptual art. This may be a clue to helping you establish criteria for determining examples of critical design projects. Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby proposed the idea of critical design as it applies to the products of graphic design and describe it as an approach that “uses speculative design proposals to challenge narrow assumptions, preconceptions and givens about the role graphic communication plays in everyday life.” Project 3: Research through Design In this assignment you may choose to work on your own or with a partner(s) to propose a critical design project. Use the examples of projects as models for an original critical design project. Requirements: 1. Define a topic/issue/subject a. Present, discuss, and revise based on feedback 2. Define a research plan a. Present, discuss, and revise based on feedback 3. Define how you will present your experiment- the design plan 4. Present, discuss, and revise based on feedback 5. Implement plans 6. Present project Project Objectives 1. Develop a conceptual framework for exploring a topic/issue 2. Analyze assumptions about design and design practice 3. Design and execute a project based on critical design ideas 4. Present information effectively, visually and verbally
Module 4: Criteria, Analysis, Documentation Independent or Team Project See Schedule for due dates Review: Basic vs. Applied Research Apropos studio research project Metahaven After See Schedule for due dates Discussion: Graphic Design Research Methods Assignment 1: Criteria for Inquiry Discussion: Problems and Questions in Graphic Design Research What makes a question or problem worthy of research? Week 1 Present criteria and example Assignment 2: Analyzing Results Review Case Study: I love you Graphic Matrix Discussion: How do you analyze visual research? See Schedule for due date Present system for organizing and analyzing research Assignment 3: Documenting and Disseminating Research Results Discussion: How are visual research findings documented and shared? See Schedule for due date Present system for organizing and analyzing research Approximately 25 hours to complete
There exists a designerly way of thinking and communicating that is both different from scientific and scholarly ways of thinking and communicating, and as powerful as scientific and scholarly methods of enquiry when applied to its own kinds of problems. – Bruce Archer (1979) Visual research, based on practices of fine arts and design, uses the making of the visual products as the primary mode of enquiry, rather than borrowing research methodologies from other disciplines. It draws on principles of aesthetics to provide an approach to the unique challenges of the personal and sometimes intimate nature of artistic enquiry. The qualitative methods of the social sciences have dominated arts-based research as they are more closely related to non scientific, unquantifiable inquiry of their forms. But such methods have difficulty in accommodating the artistic discoveries that emerge spontaneously, that are contrary to preconceived plans and previous knowledge. In thinking about the kind of research methods visual artists require, we see that they must encompass the idea of truth as creditable rather than simply factual; as something to be examined through both fact and fiction; as the interplay of objective and subjective experience. As visual researchers, we must have ways of generating artistic evidence and communicating outcomes. In this module, we will define the criteria, and the methods for analyzing and documenting visual research, as well as determine and define the tools, processes, and resources that support our personal visual research. Assignment 1:Criteria for Inquiry Determine, define, and illustrate the criteria that support a visual inquiry. How do you formulate the question or problem you will research? What characteristics of a problem or question make research possible or provide the necessary basis for inquiry? Requirements: 1. Illustrate an example of a research question or problem 2. Criteria for research and success 3. Proposed outcome, answer, solution Assignment 2: Analyzing Results Develop a matrix for analyzing your research results Requirements: 4. Develop a system for organizing and analyzing the visual data you gathered from you research 5. Present and discuss Assignment 3: Documenting and Disseminating Research Results Determine, define, and illustrate the way in which your research will be documented and shared. How will you present/archive/disseminate your results/new knowledge? Project Objectives 1. Develop methods for visual research 2. Represent information effectively, visually and verbally 3. Archive and share visual research effectively