01 Recap –
Just a quick summary “positions through iterating” brief takeaways:
- Exploring the intersection between form and meaning.
- Using the morphological box to device visual responses to an idea or story.
- Visual storytelling in the form of diagrams and symbols as a way to investigate the graphic qualities of place, time and emotions.
At the beginning I wasn’t sure about what direction to take for this brief or the kind or references that could shape this new direction, but I kept my originally line of enquiry in mind with a couple of variations as below:
02 – References
The more I research, the more I feel my line of enquiry takes unexpected turns, as well as shaping my position regarding current design practice. I think, most of my references have been very grounded in the early and mid 20th century, and there are so many valuable princes to extrapolate from these, but there’s a growing interest in my on exploring the meaning of those concepts in the world today, trying to ask questions which would become more relevant for my future practice. Below are some of the earlier practices I was looking at in relation to this project.
- Karel Martens – Evoking meaning rather than boldly presenting truth. His approach to design practice is a lot more intuitive yet there is a process-base translation present across his work. Through his career he’s been prolific building frameworks that allow for experimentation, play, and open-ended questions. The truth is, whether we intend it or not, all design evokes a sense of meaning as human perception tends to quickly form opinion according to what we see, what we value, and what we choose to ignore.
- Isotype/Picturing Science project – A high regard for accessibility and relatability. Isotype was a pretty formal system that evolved over the years to become more flexible and applicable to different realms. Nevertheless, the aims and rationale behind the systems prevailed throughout the changes. I like how the same visual language applied to the early construction of Isotype charts was expanded and challenged into a different sort of realm of representation. I also like the idea of touching of natural subjects and concrete themes.
By researching on visualising narrative, I encountered the work of Studio Moniker in the project “Trending the Multiverse”, which introduces the idea of challenging the concept of authorship, as human authorship as we know it is progressively replaced by AI. I’m a strong advocate for using new technologies and I think instead of shying away from new developments, we need to critically challenge them and engage with them as we keep pushing the boundaries of design practice.
So, at what extend could AI be used as a tool to systematically uncover new ways of visually reading, understanding and translating complex ideas or concepts? What are the ethical implications and limitations?
Could it be that the role of the designer as “the transformer” is intrinsically related to scouting new ways of reading, understanding and translating information into visual form?
03 Focus –
At this point I had gone through lots of different projects, ideas and readings that in some way or another touched on an aspect from my line of enquiry. I had to ask the question, what is that I care the most about all of this information? And the answer to me was, narrative. I believe graphic communication design is not a static discipline, and to me, is the combination of all pieces what constructs a message. I wanted to use this project to expand on the aspect of collections as a narrative form from a contextual angle.
Researching on visual narrative, I’m currently studying Ellen Lupton’s, Design is Storytelling, which led me to look at visual narratives from a broader perspective, this is why I’ve chosen to use “Lost formats” from Experimental Jetset as the project to kickstart this enquiry. Experimental Jetset look at how process aesthetics can shape meaning, or as they say: “turning language into objects, and language into form”.
Lost formats – One of the highlights of this project is that it responds to a current phenomenon happening at the time it was created (2000). In other words, it was contextual and relevant. The fact that the project was highly criticised at the time but then picked up over time shows interesting dynamics in the world of graphic design and the tension between doing work that is contextual and work that is “Industry-acceptable”.
There’s a difference between the things we perceive and the things we understand. Some things are visually interesting but difficult to understand or have an obscure meaning. Other things are soulless representations of facts. Is there a balance? Where there could be both clear meaning and aesthetic appeal?
“We’re really interested in this continuous interaction between form and content: Form determining content determining form determining content etc. It’s a continues flow, and in the ideal situation, you can’t really distinguish between form and content; they constantly change place.” (2007 Interview with French graphic design magazine Ink)
I like how they catalogue objects that as a whole tell the story of human progress and transition between interfaces, but done in a very considerate and graphic way. Also, the idea of traces of objects is one which I’ve never explored, because it deals with visual representation in real size and how that affects the way we perceive the meaning of a symbolic representation. A narrative could be formed through something so simple as a collection of shapes. Hence, it doesn’t have to be linear as such, but the whole set of information can be integral to understanding an idea.
For example, this project from Experimental Jetset deals with a social and technological phenomenon happening at the turn of the century.
What do the traces of real shapes tell us about reality?
This is almost a forensic approach to researching form, meaning and narrative, through the construction of visual collections of object traces. Although they deal with shapes of things that are obsolete, I wonder if I could extrapolate from this project to explore things that are currently indispensable, as a way to contrast, and as a way to explore the current experience of living in 2023 Britain.