OUGD601 - Dissertation Brainstorming

Throughout the summer break, I spent time brainstorming potential areas of investigation for my research project, specifically writing lists of topics/areas that really interest me. I made sure to take into consideration my previous two years of study on the course, as it seemed appropriate to extend these interests into COP 3. I began by compiling a list of initial areas of interest:

• Postmodernism

• Consumerism and capitalism

• Situationalist theory and visual communication

• Post-structuralism

• Deconstructionist theory

• Can a typeface or sign system be used to represent the theories and philosophies of this movement?

• Trends in visual culture

• The slow movement – re-emergence of traditional values, attitudes, techniques, practices and ideologies – how is this influencing commercial, mainstream design as well as personal, individual designers work?

• The future of visual communication

• Technologies impact on graphic design practice

• Authorship within graphic design

• Defining graphic design now - the blurring of boundaries between the various practices and areas within the creative spheres – why is it important to define things? Why can’t we be content with transience? 

• Is the role of graphic design certain anymore? Can the role of a graphic designer be defined?

• Graphic design of the past: distinct styles, trends, aesthetics and generally accepted trends. I feel that there is a lack of definitive aesthetic nowadays but why does it make me feel uncomfortable? Why do I feel that there has to be a defining aesthetic of the times. 

• To what extent do underground and avant-garde cultures infiltrate the mainstream, collective conscious of contemporary visual culture?

• Graphic design then vs graphic design NOW?
  What role does graphic design play in changing culture?
  How do favoured aesthetics and processes from the past become reinvented and almost championed by hipsters now rather than wider mainstream visual culture?
  Has contemporary visual culture become indefinable? 

Level 06 Dissertation Question Thinking

AREA’S OF INTEREST & POSSIBLE QUESTIONS:

My initial proposal discussed the slow movement as being an antidote to particular cultural or societal issues but you must remember that these issues must be proven and not just assumed to be true. Try to remain impartial. You should aim to unpick the key philosophies of the slow movement and analyse them in relation to established positions on technology / internet / mass media / etc. The practitioners you mention all seem to work mostly on “vanity” projects producing decorative work – what about normal, commercial graphic design? Is there a role for slow outside these subjective, insular practices?’ 

I am interested in researching how current trends in visual communication may give us a clue as to what graphic design will be like in the future? I want to examine graphic designs role within contemporary visual culture? What purpose does it supposedly serve? Do people even know what it is anymore?

Have the primary functions /intentions of graphic design been irreversibly redefined by the presence of modern technologies and the Internet? (Contexts & purposes, expression vs functionality, form following function, research and influences, narratives and emotion, pastiche & simulacrum)

Have graphic design’s traditional motives been irreversibly altered due to the presence of modern technology and the influences of the Internet?

What are the primary functions and intentions of graphic design and are they still relevant in relation (within) to contemporary visual culture?

Is technology’s influence on contemporary visual culture leading us to a state of utopia or dystopia?

Has the presence of technology altered the role of graphic design within contemporary visual culture for better or for worse?

Does the manifestation of simulacrum within contemporary visual culture result in a feeling of utopia or dystopia?

Should graphic design impose order or chaos within contemporary visual culture?

Is it the role of graphic design to impose order or chaos within visual culture?

Should graphic design have the responsibility to impose order within visual culture? 

Does contemporary visual communication have a responsibility to impose order or chaos within visual culture? (or society)

What challenges face the graphic design industry over the next decade?

What challenges does contemporary visual culture face in the Internet dominated age?

Has the role of graphic design been permanently altered by the presence of the Internet?

Have changes in typeface and print styles been necessary to adjust design concepts for the age of the Internet?

Does the practice of graphic design need to be ‘defined’ within contemporary visual culture?

Is it relevant to define graphic design in 2016?

Is it necessary to define graphic design within contemporary visual culture?

Is it graphic designs’ duty to impose order with contemporary visual culture?

Is it the role of a graphic designer to impose order or chaos through the work they produce?

Is there an avant-garde within contemporary graphic design practice and wider visual culture?

Can graphic design communicate direct narratives as well as abstracting them?

Should graphic design be purely functional or expressive?

Is it important for a designer’s personality and character to show in their work? (to be evident in contemporary visual communication?)

Is the slow movement relevant to commercial graphic design practice?

Does the slow movement offer anything *significant* to commercial visual communication? (or contemporary visual culture?)

Is the slow movement relevant within contemporary visual culture?

Does the slow movement offer anything fundamentally to creative culture in the 21^st century?