Author: Design Incubation

Chicago Design Milestones

An installation showcasing the evolution of design from 1920s to the present.

Sharon Oiga
Associate Professor
University of Illinois at Chicago

Guy Villa Jr.
Assistant Professor
Columbia College

Daria Tsoupikova
Associate Professor
UIC School of Design

Chicago Design Milestones is a media installation that brings to life the evolution of Chicago design by examining and showcasing the historic characteristics of design works from the 1920s to the present. Project material was researched and culled from the robust collection of the Chicago Design Archive (CDA), which holds over 3,200 works from over 1,100 designers and 400 firms. The CDA, the UIC School of Design & Electronic Visualization Laboratory, and Columbia College Chicago collaborated together on this project, as their underlying and ongoing quest is to spotlight the role of Chicago as a major national design center through the use of innovative technologies.

A significant challenge was figuring out how to represent the thousands of archived works from the past 100 years. This was done by scouring every single image, over countless hours, and selecting representative works for each decade.

Another challenge was figuring out how to best employ the distinctive installation structure of 150 Media Stream, comprised of 89 LED vertical blades that reach 22 feet high and span 150 feet wide — a vertical pattern combined with massive horizontality, which are opposing but interesting dynamics. These are constructs the team made sure to utilize, by ensuring that particular images animate to traverse the unique terrain.

Chicago design history is not commonly brought to the attention of the general public. The project offers it outside of the confines and prompting of a book, classroom or school, and it is instead framed in the context of an immersive technological experience.

The aim is to engage onlookers and inspire them with the city’s creative history. Hopefully, viewers delight and marvel in what they see. Perhaps they will feel a sense of nostalgia, a feeling of pride for the city, or gain a stronger appreciation for Chicago history and creativity.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 6.2: CAA 2020 Conference Chicago on February 14, 2020.

The Fusion of Art, Science and Technology

The integration of artistic expression into current technological design methods.

Min Kyong Pak
Assistant Professor
University of Southern Indiana

In our high-tech modern world, scientists and artists push the limits of fusion and innovation to create new avant-garde narratives, emerging formats, and technological platforms. Technology and medium are constantly evolving. The demand for better quality in new media, storytelling and medium continue to evolve. Examples of new media include artificial intelligence, augmented reality, data visualization, interactive media, human-computer interface, video games, and virtual reality. In order to create this new media, artists are required to use code, data, and algorithms.

Storytelling is not merely confined to spoken or written words. There are many ways by which a designer can tell a story. A designer can exploit cutting-edge advances in science and technology to tell a story with artistic influence. My interest is to integrate artistic expression into current technological design methods. This project will give a voice to ideas that touch and affect us on a daily basis, search for who we are, and relate to our environmental world around us. The result is to infuse art, technology, and culture in the context of a community or geographical location. The greatest work of art connects and engages with our senses, heart, soul, and mind.

We live in a complex world. The digital age provides us with many opportunities to rebuild and adapt to an ever-evolving continuum. Both art and science are forms of exploration. Designers explore innovative designs, and scientists find the answers. Both transform reality and innovation to push our expectations and imaginations. My vision is to bridge the gap between art and science to create the best 21st century design. I believe the fusion of art, science, and technology is transformative and revolutionary.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 6.2: CAA 2020 Conference Chicago on February 14, 2020.

Hierarchical Space: How the Use of Space Creates Bias

Investigations of data visualizations used to maintain bias about gender and race.

Katherine Krcmarik
Assistant Professor
University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Commonly used visuals such as the United States’ Electoral College map and the Mercator projection—the most common visual of a world map—support distortions of reality. In both examples, the use of space, or more accurately, the misuse of space, distorts our perception of the visual story and perpetuates long-held biases. These two examples lead to the investigation of hundreds of data visualizations from which a clear pattern emerged of hierarchy used to maintain biases about gender and race.

In design, hierarchy serves as a key building block of practice. The use of space to establish hierarchy is one of the first concepts we learn and teach in design education and remains one of the most valued tools for designers. However, hierarchy—vertical hierarchy specifically—relies on the concept that the amount of space and the location of an image or word occupies determines the importance of it in relation to all other elements. Hierarchy allows for the easy access of information but also, whether intentionally or inadvertently, may reflect gender and race biases in the decisions made when establishing the hierarchy.

The design profession needs to explore how our basic structures and precepts contribute to the cultural construct to find a new approach to design that eliminates bias. In a vertical hierarchy, one voice, style, right, or reality reigns dominant over all possibilities. Possible solutions to breaking down the biases present in the current vertical hierarchical system may reside in explorations of horizontal hierarchy, heterarchy, and semilattices.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 6.2: CAA 2020 Conference Chicago on February 14, 2020.

Strategy + Creative: Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration

Simulating the working relationship between strategists and creatives.

Kathy Mueller
Assistant Professor
Temple University

Jennifer Freeman
Assistant Professor of Instruction
Temple University

This presentation will provide case studies for design educators to imagine collaborative interdisciplinary projects with their colleagues in media, communication, and business. It will include an overview of project structure, process, and outcomes. The presentation will also examine the advantages and drawbacks to the variety of approaches the presenting professors have taken to this collaboration. It will illuminate the challenge of fulfilling the needs of two different student groups.

Examples will be pulled from seven years of collaboration between an Art Direction class and an Advertising Account Planning class. Projects were structured to simulate the working relationship between strategists and creatives—cultivating teamwork and mutual respect among students using experiential learning. Art Direction students learned the value of market research and strategy insights. Account Planning students gained an appreciation for the creative process.

The professors have experimented with modifications to the assignment, to varying degrees of success. In addition to discussing collaboration techniques, this presentation will examine the learnings from teaching with a variety of client approaches—theoretical client assignments; partnerships with student entrepreneur clients through a campus incubator; partnerships with external clients, such as Urban Outfitters Inc.; and most recently, in partnership with a design studio specialized in the non-profit sector.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 6.2: CAA 2020 Conference Chicago on February 14, 2020.

Lost on the Trail: Investigating Hiking Wayfinding and Trail Navigation within the National Parks

Proposing a nature-inspired solution to reduce the amount of SAR operations.

Sara Mitschke
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Texas State University

Every year, thousands of search and rescue (SAR) operations are performed to locate and save lost or missing persons within our national parks. On average, Yosemite National Park’s SAR team responds to approximately 250 rescues per year. Nearly 70 percent of those rescues are to locate lost, missing, or injured hikers. The primary factors contributing to hikers becoming lost or reported as missing include losing the trail accidentally (and then being overcome by darkness), taking the wrong trail, and miscalculating the time or distance of the planned route. In addition, inadequate signage placement, poor typographic design, and lack of signage at decision points are among the many issues when analyzing the wayfinding throughout the park. The purpose of this project and study is to investigate Yosemite National Park’s hiking trail wayfinding system to design an improved solution in order to reduce the amount of SAR operations for lost or missing hikers. 

Primary research will examine trail wayfinding and trail navigation in order to identify shortcomings with hiking trail wayfinding within our national parks. On average, Yosemite has approximately 60,000 overnight hikers annually, therefore, the research will include the impact darkness has on navigating trails at night. The practice of biomimicry will be used to influence the overall design outcome through the analysis of nature’s navigational processes and bioluminescence. Multidisciplinary collaboration with the natural sciences will be necessary in order to design a nature-inspired and sustainable solution.  

Yosemite National Park is an ideal research environment for this study because observational research has identified multiple areas for hiking wayfinding improvements. Yosemite is also one of the most visited national parks in the United States. The study will conclude with a proposed nature-inspired solution to reduce the amount of SAR operations for lost or missing hikers.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 6.2: CAA 2020 Conference Chicago on February 14, 2020.

Women’s Vote 2020: A Case Study in Civic Design

A case study of women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity

Kelly Salchow MacArthur
Associate Professor
Michigan State University

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in the United States in 1920. At over 167 million, women make up 50.6% of the American population.(1) In every presidential election since 1964, more women have voted than men. In 2016, 63.3% of women cast ballots.(2) Graphic design has consistently been implemented as a powerful tool in politics, with poster design running parallel to activism and social change for over 100 years. In light of the approaching 2020 election, design educators and practitioners Nancy Skolos and Kelly Salchow MacArthur, have merged these concepts to create the Women’s Vote 2020 initiative. This presentation will share the case study of this historic opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity—through a poster design initiative commemorating the milestone and promoting voter participation.

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1. “United States of America (USA) Population Clock,” n.d., https://countrymeters.info/en/United_States_of_America_(USA) (accessed July 12, 2019).

2. “Gender Differences in Voter Turnout,” 2019, http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/resources/genderdiff.pdf (accessed July 15, 2019).

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 6.2: CAA 2020 Conference Chicago on February 14, 2020.

Four Counter-Narratives for Graphic Design History

The potential for inclusivity and increased emphasis on social impact.

Augusta Rose Toppins
Associate Professor
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Most graphic design histories conform to a professionalized, Eurocentric narrative in which prominent works are progressively arranged along a timeline. While methodologies vary between Phillip Meggs’, Richard Hollis’, and Johanna Drucker and Emily McVarish’s well-respected texts, these approaches share similarities that suggest a dominant narrative. In Thinking about History, Sara Maza wrote: “[T]he practice of history itself and the questions historians ask are transformed and renewed every time a new set of actors lays claim to its past.” In this Pecha Kucha, I will present four counter narratives for graphic design history that offer the potential for inclusivity and increased emphasis on social impact.

First, I will offer a Marxist counter-narrative in which the history of graphic design is told primarily through its relationship to labor and class struggle. Second, I will suggest a people’s history of graphic design, in which the counter-narrative is invested in graphic design as a universal human activity and a form of cultural production beyond the profession. Third, I will discuss decolonized counter-narratives, in which graphic design is delinked from its relationship to capitalism and legacies of Western centrality. Fourth, I will offer an intersectional counter-narrative in which gender politics and queer theory are integrated into the history of graphic design.

For each counter-narrative, I will share a methodology as well as design objects, ideas, processes, and/or texts that serve as examples. While none of these approaches will be exhaustively discussed in such a short presentation, my goal is to spark curiosity about the possibilities of shifting the conversation.

Image note: Lakota visual language, designed by Sadie Red Wing, 2016. Image courtesy of Sadie Red Wing.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 6.2: CAA 2020 Conference Chicago on February 14, 2020.

Design Incubation Colloquium 6.2: CAA 2020 Conference Chicago

Presentations and discussion in Research and Scholarship in Communication Design at the 108th Annual CAA Conference 2020 in Chicago.

Design Incubation Colloquium 6.2: CAA 2020 Chicago
Friday, February 14, 2020

Two colloquia will be presented at the 108th Annual CAA Conference, hosted by CAA Affiliated Society, Design Incubation.

Research in Communication Design. Presentation of unique, significant creative work, design education, practice of design, case studies, contemporary practice, new technologies, methods, and design research. A moderated discussion will follow the series of presentations.

The colloquium session is open to all conference attendees.

Design Intervention and Engagement: Design Incubation Colloquium 6.2

There is a presumed canon of visual communication design, one that includes its history, theory, practice, and even the interpretation of its global impact. While it is convenient to take this canon at face value, there are alternative lenses through which we can view the field. In order to continue advancing the discipline in equitable ways, to be inclusive and engage with a variety of practitioners and users, it is important to consider a multitude of alternative viewpoints. Interventions in our attitudes happen in many ways—from envisioning how design alters the world, to methods we use to interpret design in new contexts. This panel will explore such critical interventions, uncovering new ways to re-engage with design education, design practice, and design communities.

Friday, February 14, 2020
8:30 AM – 10:00 AM
Hilton Chicago – Lower Level – Salon C-1

Co-Chairs

Heather Quinn
Assistant Professor
DePaul University

Nathan Matteson
Assistant Professor
DePaul University

PRESENTATIONS

Four Counter-Narratives for Graphic Design History
Augusta Rose Toppins
Associate Professor
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Women’s Vote 2020: A Case Study in Civic Design
Kelly Salchow MacArthur
Associate Professor
Michigan State University

Lost on the Trail: Investigating Hiking Wayfinding and Trail Navigation within the National Parks
Sara Mitschke
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Texas State University

Strategy + Creative: Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration
Kathy Mueller
Assistant Professor
Temple University

Jennifer Freeman
Assistant Professor of Instruction
Temple University

Hierarchical Space: How the Use of Space Creates Bias
Katherine Krcmarik
Assistant Professor
University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Technological Frontiers: Design Incubation Colloquium 6.2

Recent advances in technology and improvements of accessibility allow designers to deliver meaningful experiences to broad populations of ages, cultures, abilities, etc.—those who have previously been isolated from the discourse. These rapid changes in technology have also changed the landscape of design practice (for both better and worse) creating the conditions for more collaborative and multi-disciplinary teams who leverage these new or improved tools. This panel will address research projects working at the edge of contemporary technology, across disciplines, and within emerging disciplines. They leverage technological innovation to address issues of representation and access.

Friday, February 14, 2020
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Hilton Chicago – Lower Level – Salon C-1

Co-Chairs

Alex Girard
Assistant Professor
Southern Connecticut State University

Dan Wong
Associate Professor
New York City College of Technology, CUNY

PRESENTATIONS

The Fusion of Art, Science and Technology
Min Kyong Pak
Assistant Professor
University of Southern Indiana

Chicago Design Milestones
Sharon Oiga
Associate Professor
University of Illinois at Chicago

Guy Villa Jr.
Assistant Professor
Columbia College

Daria Tsoupikova
Associate Professor
University of Illinois at Chicago

Interactive Game Design: Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves
Leigh Hughes
Assistant Professor
Coastal Carolina University

Design Delight: A Framework For The Analysis And Generation Of Pleasurable Designs
Omar Sosa-Tzec
Assistant Professor
University of Michigan

Critical Visual Analysis of Graphic Expressions of Emotions Over Time
Ann McDonald
Associate Professor
Northeastern University

A Peace of Mind: Design Research for Pervasive Healthcare
Hyuna Park
Assistant Professor
University of Kansas

Designing for the Visually Impaired
Min Choi
Adjunct Professor
San Diego State University
San Diego City College

Colloquium 7.1: Oakland University, Call for Submissions

Call for design research abstracts. Deadline: Saturday, June 20, 2020.

Submission Deadline:
Saturday, June 20, 2020.

Event date: Saturday, October 17, 2020.

This has been reformatted to be a virtual event.

Oakland University
Department of Art and Art History
310 Wilson Hall 
Rochester, MI 48309

Design Incubation Colloquium 7.1 (#DI2020oct) will be held at the Department of Art and Art History at Oakland University on Saturday, October 17, 2020, 10:30am-4:30pm. Hosted by Maria Smith Bohannon. This event is open to all interested in Communication Design research.

We invite designers—practitioners and educators—to submit abstracts of design research. We recommend reviewing our white paper on best practices for writing an academic research abstract.

Presentations format is Pecha Kucha.

For more details, see the colloquia details and description. Abstracts can be submitted online for peer review.

Robin Landa Nominated for Board of Directors CAA: Please Vote for Her Today!

Vote for CAA’s 2020 Board of Directors

Robin Landa, Distinguished Professor, Michael Graves College, Kean University and Chair, Director of Community Outreach at Design Incubation has been nominated for the Board of Directors of College Art Association (CAA). Please join us in congratulating her for the nomination and vote for her today! She is the only design scholar candidate for this prestigious position.