Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #140205 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

Synopsis
In an age of globalization and connectivity, the idea of 'mainstream culture' has become quaint. Websites, magazines, books, and television have all honed in on ever-diversifying subcultures, hoping to carve out niche audiences that grow savvier and more narrowly sliced by the day. Consequently, the discipline of graphic design has undergone a sea change. Where visual communication was once informed by a designer's creative intuition, the proliferation of specialized audiences now calls for more research-based design processes. "Design Studies", a collection of 27 essays from an international cast of top design researchers, sets out to mend this schism between research and practice. The essays presented here make a strong argument for performing rigorous experimentation and analysis. Each author outlines methods in which research has aided their design - whether by investigating how senior citizens react to design aesthetics, how hip hop culture can influence design, or how design for third-world nations is effected by cultural differences.

This comprehensive reader is the definitive reference for this new direction in graphic design, and an essential resource for both students and practitioners.

Customer Reviews

Defining the emerging field of design research
A note all designers. This text is a must buy. Graphic Design is now entering a transitional state where the aesthetic is no longer the primary on 'good design'. Communication and the visual are now being reinforced by design research and the designer will need to validate social and cultural issues in resolving a design brief. In recent years design has been diluted with the advent of technology but with the emerging field of design research the graphic designer will become more than it's current definition. This book introduces and deconstructs those elements that the graphic design will need. Deconstructed research methodologies and theoretical frameworks aid in delivering this text as an important piece not only in academia but in practiced based design, bringing design into the realm of importance in parallel to the sciences and humanities.

Bryn Andrews BA (Hons), MA.