There has been a lot of emphasis placed on ‘research’ in the weeks since school began. At the larger level, we’re being asked to respond to the question of how we, as graphic designers, employ research in our work. Specifically, for those of us working toward a design thesis, how does research inform the cohesion of both our formal work, and the written component of it? How do we approach our respective topics in a way that contributes to design discourse, but also furthers the dialogue in our subject area?

Because graphic designers use content from disciplines outside of design,¹ it’s crucial that we have at least a working understanding of the terms and conditions of our subject matter. But it’s one thing to troll Wikipedia for subject articles, or to check out a few books from the library as inspiration. It’s another thing completely to approach your subject with the rigor worthy of a PhD dissertation, to analyze and develop new possibilities or interpretations, and to immerse yourself so deeply in your subject that you could sit across the table from an expert in your field and have a mutually beneficial discussion.

These are things that have been on my mind of late. My attendance this summer at the Things that Move: The Material Worlds of Tourism and Travel Conference in the UK forced me to confront the subject of what I have to contribute to the field of tourism studies. It was a question that was (indirectly) asked of me frequently during my stay there. Surrounded by 150 ‘researchers’ from around the world, (most with PhDs, others working toward them), who were looking at the ’stuff’ of tourism in a myriad of different ways, I found myself desiring to legitimize my presence there, to respond to people’s innocent inquiries about why I was there with an answer that would make sense to them.² Oddly enough, there were less people addressing the the physical relics of tourism from a formal-historical³ perspective than I had anticipated. The conference was billed as multi-disciplinary, but the bulk of the attendees were from the social sciences. Most were not visual people, and yet they were dealing with visual things. From my perspective this is a fantastic opportunity to explore things from the other direction, to analyze the visual toward understanding the cultural and historical and to bring that to a future conference.⁴

One of the first things we were reminded of on the first day of class was that in the end, we are graphic designers, not anthropologists, sociologists, etc.. Be that as it may, I still value the ability to be able to be fluent with my content. One of my goals for the year is that when this is all said and done, I want to be able to talk shop with the cultural anthropologists, the sociologists, the urban planners and historians who are working with this topic.⁵

But back to the subject of research..

1. Within my graduating class alone, the subjects we’re tackling include anthropology, sociology, politics, linguistics, economics.. to name a few. [↩]
2. Let’s face it, Graphic Designer is a misunderstood title. To the outside world, its associated meanings equate to Photoshop Wizard, Web Designer, Production Assistant, or Hey, Can You Draw Me a Logo? It Won’t Take You Long and It Will Be Great For Your Portfolio. Given the overwhelming excess of ‘Graphics Design’ out there, it’s no surprise this misconception is so prevalent. Or that my connection with the visual aspects of tourism was not immediately apparent to those around me. [↩]
3. The term art-historical gets used a lot. I think there’s a lot of space out there for the design-historical as well. Formal-historical is a term I made up just now to try and encompass all of the disciplines that examine the formal and structural qualities of objects, with a critical eye for things such as provenance and historical context, in order to hypothesize about culture and history. [↩]
4. This is not to say that nobody is emphasizing the visual. It would be trite of me to continue without mentioning the work of critic Lucy Lippard and David Crouch and Nina Lübren. Or the recent exhibition at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. But there is a lot of room for exploration from this end. [↩]
5. Keeping in mind, of course, that the danger in existing in the middle ground is the potential for pseudo scientific work indicative of a lack of rigor in dealing with complex content. My colleague Fish could give you an earful about why this is not the way to design. [↩]