Fifteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Building on an overview of the preliminary outcomes of a project entitled “Immutable—A Mineral History of Currency and Typography” this project rethinks graphic design’s historiography, centering the banal genre of the document and its entanglement with statecraft and colonial(ism/ity) in order to make an intervention in the assumptions that structure conventional graphic design pedagogy and practice. By counterposing what I call “the design imperative to publicity,” which entails a graphic design historiography and studio pedagogy that centers artifacts like logos, brands, posters, websites, apps, etc. against, I propose the centering of the document (which entails artifacts ranging from money, to passports, to property deeds, etc.) as a ground against which to figure what I call “the design imperative to immutability” (or “the design imperative to remember”). This presentation grounds its reflection on some recent assignments given in graphic design studio courses, as well as through a critical evaluation of graphic design historiography as an “ontologizing” force that shapes the horizon’s of a student (and eventually) practitioner’s disciplinary horizons.