Communication & Graphic Design Research blog
Academic discussions about graphic and communication design
An ocassional blog and chat about communication and graphic design research issues. Academic issues and discussion topics that have come out of research, but in a more informal manner; as well as some thoughts, as well as to reviews of articles, papers and suchlike…
Recent articles
Challenges of using AI tools for creating design education materials
ChatGPT’s role in design education and its benefits and challenges for course material creation, limitations in context and creativity, and discussing the need for human educators in design teaching over and above any potential benefit of AI text generation.
Whatever happened to design by committee & when did designers start welcoming stakeholder participation anyway?
The changing narratives and practices of design in the 21st century have moved the goalposts with regard to designer—stakeholder participation.
Digital threat or design opportunity? Embracing the creative challenges of disruptive technologies
Discussions around AI continue upwards and onwards. For designers, the challenges of AI and automation are increasingly acute.
Design interview methods: helping to tell the story
Some reflections on design interview methods and creative practice resesarch.
Re-thinking Design Thinking – time to take some responsibility?
Design Thinking has been around for a while, but remains under-critiqued. This recently published article challenges the hegemony of Design Thinking education, offering options for its future dissemination.
The unbearable irrelevance of three design concepts
Industry stakeholders and clients often expect three design concepts as part of designers’ responses to a creative brief. Why is this and does it have to be this way?
I learned to design by copying Time Out magazine’s layout, now it’s gone!
Time Out magazine has printed its last London edition. As a graphic designer who cut his teeth learning to design using its layout as a template, it’s the end of an era. What does this signify for graphic design?
Design research, design practice, design thinking and professional practice (with added graphic design)
A short summary of key discussions around design research, design practice, design thinking and professional practice
Graphic design and interactivity: still a paradigm shift for graphic designers?
Twenty years ago, just after the turn of the 21st century, graphic designers were still coming to terms with interactivity as a form of communication design. This article looks back and ponders what has changed and considers the future of graphic design research, practice and interactivity.
Co-design & building a discourse around the graphic design brief
The concept and importance of a design brief is overtly understood well beyond design practice itself – especially among stakeholders who work with designers, as well as clients who commission their services.
Graphic design versus communication design
What’s the difference between graphic design and communication design? The two terms are the main ones used for both the academic discipline and the industry profession. However, many people appear to be unclear about what the terms mean and what practices they refer to.
Don’t call me a graphic designer!
What’s in a name? This new research suggests that some graphic designers are questioning whether the term ‘graphic design’ is reducing their design capital within the creative process.
We need to talk about the design brief… again!
Research about the graphic design brief remains elusive within academia. Especially as when a brief is lacking, is incomplete or unclear, it can make an already ambiguous graphic design process and discipline even more fractured.
Graphic design as a re-creational tool, process & research method
Graphic design is re-creational – re-presentation, as opposed to representation. Graphic designers often also have to face creative limitations and disappointments. Like theatre, graphic design is uniquely communicative and innately performative practice. This performativity provides an opportunity for professional graphic designers to assert their unique, practice specific, skills and talents.
Lab-grown meat: science triumphing over nature, or a metaphor for design?
Recent advancements in ‘lab-grown meat present interesting communication challenges. Especially wider ones, such as designing for new, potentially ‘confronting’, concepts and products.
Graphic designers – awkward prima donnas, or the nicest people you will ever work with?
Graphic designers often have a public and industry image of being argumentative prima donnas. But what is the truth and where is the research?
Performance, ethnography and design as research methods
Performance, ethnography and design are interconnected research methods. This article explores some of the pedagological issues involved.
Graphic design and artificial intelligence
There is one narrative about graphic design’s historical development that contextualises it in relation to the technological advancement of creative tools. This is often at odds with designers’ own focus on, for example, consumer aesthetics (Kuutti 2009). Nevertheless, it is inarguable that graphic designers have increasingly been forced to face the advance of disruptive technologies …
Some articles engaging with current graphic design issues
With the continuing dearth of academic articles that treat graphic/communication design as a specific research discipline, I’m always on the lookout for (and writing about) content that does address this. Indeed, a recent article that I read drew its conclusions about ‘designers’ from such a wide range of disciplines, that it may as well have …
Researching the graphic design brief
“What’s the brief?” is a fairly everyday question in graphic design studios. But there appears to be little research on design briefs and the briefing process, even when looking at wider design research discourse (Jones & Askland, 2012; Paton & Dorst, 2011). This is intriguing, considering how integral the brief is within so many design …
Yes, but what kind of design are we talking about?
Every industry from software engineering, to business, to professional services, consultancy and professional development, seemingly uses the word design in some form these days. And that’s aside from its more traditional artisanal and professional disciplinary use – fashion, graphic, product etc. – as well as within educational discourse. Indeed, within industry, asking ‘what do you …
Graphic design as a specific research discipline
Graphic design has tended to be seen as the poor cousin of the various design disciplines, often being seen as a secondary supplement to wider design practices (Poynor, 2011; Triggs, 2011), or even being treated as simply an aesthetic practice (Jacobs, 2017; Walker, 2017) This seems to be especially the case within academia, where it …
Defamiliarisation and design as research methods
Defamiliarization and design as academic research methods (and methodologies)