Abstract
Graphic design is an industry whose professionals have been said to wilfully obscure its practice, be resistant to research, and often inadequately communicate their own professional requirements. Acknowledging such obstacles, this paper focuses on the methods and outcomes from an experimental design research project which intervened in these identified disciplinary hurdles within graphic design. Acknowledging that performativity emerges from the wider field of design research, while also manifesting in a unique form within graphic design, the project used performative methods to defamiliarise graphic design practice. In doing so, it produced insights that are critical to understanding the discipline and have heretofore remained obfuscated and resistant to traditional research methods. These methods included interviews with graphic designers using themes of performative metaphor, leading to the creation of a semi-structured script. This script was then used in collaboration with a professional theatre director and a troupe of actors, who functioned as ‘proxy designers’ by re-performing emergent themes from the interviews during a series of workshops. Combining the project outcomes with existing discussions within graphic design research, the paper argues for the integration of defamiliarisation as a design practice into the formal pedagogy of graphic design education and academic research. Doing so will not only prepare its future practitioners for interaction with industry stakeholders but also enhance its academic design capital. Thus, performance-inspired defamiliarisation becomes a tool for enabling graphic design to further identify itself as a necessarily distinct academic discourse, as well as better preparing its future practitioners for industry.
Presenters
Yaron MeronCourse co-ordinator/Teacher, Art, Design & Architecture, Monash University, Victoria, Australia
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Gaphic Design, Design Research, Defamiliarisation, Design Pedagogy, Design Methods, Performativity
