Author: Design Incubation

Mis/Understanding: Reframing Language Barriers and Miscommunication Through InteractiveDesign

An interactive installation that invites you to move and reveal layers of meaning as participants.

Najmeh Pirahmadian
Graduate student
Ohio University

Miscommunication is often studied in linguistics and psychology as a technical challenge of understanding, yet such perspectives overlook the emotional and cognitive labor carried by non-native speakers. Language barriers create hesitation, delay, and dissonance that are difficult to express through description alone. This research addresses that gap by using interactive design to reveal the invisible labor of miscommunication, reframing it from a private struggle into a shared experiential phenomenon.

The project employed an exploratory, practice-based design research methodology that combined projection mapping, creative coding, and responsive technologies to construct environments where meaning is deliberately unstable. Works include wall text where English words gradually appear over Persian letters through the viewer’s body movement, echoing the struggle of non-native speakers who must often rely on body language to make themselves understood; a dual-microphone system that distorts or delays speech; motion-activated pieces that fragment words or faces in real time; and looping animations that represent anxiety, fear of misunderstanding, and the pressure to perform fluently.

This research resonates with works such as Cildo Meireles’s Babel, which sonifies linguistic confusion; Paige (Xinling)’s Speak in Bloom, visualizing fragile digital speech; and Shuang Wu’s A Poetic Space, reinterpreting poetry beyond translation. Like these, Mis/Understanding transforms linguistic distance into shared, sensory experience.

Initial outcomes show that participants experienced stress and disorientation, suggesting the installations successfully replicate the hesitation and cognitive load of bilingual communication and make the invisible labor of miscommunication tangible.

This research contributes to communication design scholarship by reframing miscommunication as both a design problem and an opportunity: a space where interactivity and relational aesthetics generate new forms of encounter. It demonstrates how practice-based design can function as research, moving beyond representation toward experiential knowledge-making and offering transferable methods for future studies of accessibility, identity, and cross-cultural communication.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 12.1: Virtual Online on Friday, November 14, 2025.

From Denim Wars to AI: Rethinking Fashion Advertising in the Classroom

How recent advertising campaigns have sparked political, cultural, and ethical reactions among students.

Summer Doll-Myers
Associate Professor
Kutztown University

In previous work, I explored diversity of models, body positivity, and the role of storytelling in reaching millennial and Gen Z consumers. Those ideas shaped the original version of a fashion advertising project I teach in my communication design curriculum. Today, however, the landscape has shifted once again. TikTok and other social media platforms now shape how audiences interpret fashion campaigns, while artificial intelligence introduces both creative possibilities—such as impossible environments and experimental imagery—and new ethical questions around authenticity, representation, and human craft. At the same time, the current “denim wars” between brands like Gap and American Eagle reveal how cultural and political tensions weave themselves into fashion advertising, sparking unexpected conversations among students in the classroom.

In response, I redesigned the fashion project in my advertising design course. Students now develop a multi-platform campaign—print, in-store, and digital—using traditional photography with the option to integrate AI-generated background elements. They also analyze contemporary fashion campaigns, examining how AI, cultural politics, and brand positioning influence audience perception and trust. The project balances conceptual thinking with problem solving, encouraging students to evaluate fashion advertising through both creative and ethical lenses.

This presentation will share the project brief, examples covered, student quotes about AI, and selected student work. While earlier versions of the project emphasized storytelling and representation, design pedagogy today must also prepare students to navigate the technological, cultural, and political forces shaping the future of fashion advertising.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 12.1: Virtual Online on Friday, November 14, 2025.

Women Graphic Designers: Rebalancing the Canon

An anthology of 42 richly illustrated stories of profiling 44 women.

Elizabeth Resnick
Professor Emerita
Massachusetts College of Art and Design

In 1994, US designer, design educator, and historian Martha Scotford published an inspirational essay titled ‘Messy History vs. Neat History: Toward an Expanded View of Women in Graphic Design’ (Visible Language 28:4). In her introduction, she states: ‘For the contributions of women in graphic design to be discovered and understood, their different experiences and roles within the patriarchal and capitalist framework they share with men, and their choices and experiences within a female framework, must be acknowledged and explored. Neat history is conventional history: a focus on the mainstream activities and work of individual, usually male, designers. Messy history seeks to discover, study, and include the variety of alternative approaches and activities that are often part of women designers’ professional lives.’

Women Graphic Designers: Rebalancing the Canon is a book of illustrated stories examining the resilient and determined lives of 44 women graphic designers — from Europe, Asia, North America, South America, South Africa, and Australia — who worked professionally during the twentieth through early twenty-first century. Written by a stellar cohort of international design academics, practitioners, and design historians, the book represents the current research landscape of revisioning graphic design history, in part due to the recognition that many past voices have been systematically excluded.

Currently, there is an urgent need to codify and decolonize the work and stories of multicultural women designers, making them more accessible to educators, practitioners, and students alike. Critical feminist and decolonial perspectives provide a richer, more multifaceted narrative of design history that acknowledges both the advances and limitations of female designers’ contributions. Embracing the converging paths forged through the multidisciplinary nature of design and its design practitioners, my presentation will illuminate certain stories selected for their diverse cultural experiences, perspectives, and approaches to design.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 12.1: Virtual Online on Friday, November 14, 2025.

Design Incubation Colloquium 12.1: Virtual: Online

Friday, November 14, 2025
11:00AM – 12:30PM EDT
Online (ZOOM)

Recent research in Communication Design. Presentations 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.

Friday, November 14, 2025
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM EDT
Online

Moderator

Cat Normoyle
East Carolina University

PRESENTATIONS

Women Graphic Designers: Rebalancing the Canon
Elizabeth Resnick
Professor Emerita
Massachusetts College of Art and Design

The Keywork: Using AI for Insight, Not Replacement, in Creative Practice
RJ Thompson
Associate Professor
University of Pittsburg

Make, Print, Share: Fold, Print, Share: Collective Learning Through Risograph Printing
Kyla Paolucci
Assistant Professor
St. John’s University

Vic Rodriguez Tang
Assistant Professor
Texas State University

From Denim Wars to AI: Rethinking Fashion Advertising in the Classroom
Summer Doll-Myers
Associate Professor
Kutztown University

Born Digital: Fresh Attempts around Typography Courses for Students Today
Jialun Wang
Assistant Professor
Otis College of Art and Design

Eager Zhang
Assistant Professor
Otis College of Art and Design

Mis/Understanding: Reframing Language Barriers and Miscommunication Through Interactive Design
Najmeh Pirahmadian
Graduate student
Ohio University

CFP: 2025 Design Incubation Communication Design Educators Awards

ENTRY DEADLINE EXTENDED: JANUARY 15, 2026.

Call for Nominations and Entries for the 2025 Design Incubation Educators Awards Competition.

Design Incubation announces a call for nominations and entries for the 2025 awards for communication design educators in the areas of scholarship, teaching, service. The aim of the awards program is to discover and recognize new scholarship (creative work and publications), teaching, and service in our broad and varied discipline. We hope to expand the design record, promote excellence and share knowledge within the field.

Nominations and Entries

We ask colleagues and mentors to identify outstanding creative work, publications, teaching, and service being created by design educators in the field communication design and to nominate these individuals for an award. Nominations will be accepted until December 31, 2025 January 15, 2026.

Entry Guidelines

Entries will be accepted until (December 31, 2025). Nominations are not required to enter in this scholarly competition. Complete the online entry form (https://designincubation.com/design-incubation-awards-competition-entry-form/) with the following:

Title: Description of project and outcomes (not to exceed 500 words.)

Supporting Materials: (limited to 5-page medium resolution pdf of artwork; web links to websites, videos, other online resources; published documents or visual documents.)

Biography of applicant/s (150 words per applicant.)

Curriculum vitae of applicant/s.

Entry fee: $35.00 USD.

2025 JURY

Steven McCarthy (Chair) University of Minnesota

Leslie Atzmon – https://www.emich.edu/art/faculty-staff/l_atzmon.php

Bernard Caniffe – http://piecestudio.org/case-studies, https://www.design.iastate.edu/profiles/canniffe/

Matt Gaynor – https://www.memphis.edu/artanddesign/people/matthew-gaynor.php

Myra Thiessen –https://www.monash.edu/mada/design/people/myra-thiessen

Leslie Atzmon is a designer, design historian, and design critic. She has published in Eye, Design and Culture, Communication Design, and Design Issues. Atzmon edited Visual Rhetoric and the Eloquence of Design (Parlor Press 2011) and co-edited Encountering Things: Design and Theories of Things (Bloomsbury 2017) with industrial designer Prasad Boradkar. Most recently, she edited The Graphic Design Reader (Bloomsbury 2019) with Teal Triggs of the Royal College of Art. In 2016, she was a Fulbright Fellow at Central Saint Martins in London investigating the topic of Darwin and design thinking. Atzmon and colleague Ryan Molloy were awarded a Sappi Ideas that Matter Grant, which supports design that changes lives for the better. For the grant, students rebranded Ypsilanti’s non-profit Riverside Arts Center as a community arts hub. Atzmon recently curated the exhibition Design and Science, and is currently working on a collection also entitled Design and Science (forthcoming Bloomsbury 2020).

Bernard Canniffe is a current professor and former department chair of graphic design at Iowa State University, and has held faculty positions at MICA (Baltimore), MCAD (Minneapolis) and Ringling College of Art and Design (Sarasota), A native of Wales (UK), he has presented and exhibited on a global scale since earning an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1999. PIECE Studio, a creative venture he founded in 2006, is an agency that “engages in and with communities, organizations, activists, governments and municipalities and has run projects and workshops that promote social justice and community empowerment internationally,” primarily through the design of identities, publications and posters. 

Matthew Gaynor received his BA and MFA in graphic design from Yale University, and is currently chair of the Department of Art and Design at the University of Memphis. He has held faculty and leadership positions at University of Kansas, California State University at San Bernardino, University of Cincinnati, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Kansas State University. He also served as creative director for F+W Publications, which published HOW magazine. Gaynor has won numerous awards for his design work, which is focused on the intersection of type and image, and continues his practice of typographic design, as well as an ongoing interest in photographic portraiture.

Myra Thiessen is a researcher and senior lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and is the program coordinator of the communication design program in the Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture. She earned a PhD in typography and graphic communication at the University of Reading and a Bachelor of Design degree in communication design from the University of Alberta. She has published her research widely, especially about typography and cognition, in the journals Visible Language, Ergonomics, and The Design Journal among others, and co-edited the book The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design. 

Steven McCarthy is professor emeritus of graphic design at the University of Minnesota, where he taught for over two decades. He earned an MFA from Stanford University and a BFA from Bradley University. His book The Designer As… Author, Producer, Activist, Entrepreneur, Curator and Collaborator: New Models for Communicating was published in 2013. McCarthy’s creative work has been in over 150 juried and invitational exhibitions, and has been awarded inclusion in the AIGA annual, the STA 100 show and in Graphis Poster. He has published in the journals Design Issues, Message, Visible Language, Design and Culture, Visual Communication, and occasionally writes for Eye magazine. In 2017 he was awarded the Minnesota Book Artist Award.

http://stevenmccarthy.design

Call for Submissions, Colloquium 12.1: Virtual, Online

Call for design research abstracts. Deadline: Friday, October 3, 2025.

Submission Deadline: Friday, October 3, 2025.

Event date: Friday, November 14, 2025
Format: Virtual/Online
Location: ZOOM

We invite designers—practitioners, creators, and educators—to submit abstracts of design research, creative investigations, and productions. This is a virtual online event format. Abstracts can be submitted online now for peer review.

Abstract submissions are double-blind peer-reviewed. Accepted abstracts will be published online. Please review the articles, Quick Start Guide for Writing Abstracts and Writing an Academic Research Abstract: For Communication Design Scholars before submitting.

There is a $10 conference fee required upon acceptance of the research abstract for non-members. The conference fee is waived for active annual members. Find out more about our annual memberships.

Researchers will videotape their 6-minute presentations which will published online in advance of the colloquium. The video recording is due by Friday, October 24, 2025. We encourage all attendees to watch the videos in advance of the moderated discussion.

Presentation format is Pecha Kucha. For more details, see the colloquia details and description.

The colloquium is a moderated panel discussion of the research involving the researchers, thought leaders, and Design Incubation members.

Reflections from Past Award Recipients: 2016-2025

Why we do what we do. Design Incubation awards for research in communication design.

Aggie Toppins’ reflections

Unlike many design awards, which tend to judge projects according to aesthetics, Design Incubation takes the conceptual intent and the impact of the work into account. This award means more than “peer approval” — it is national recognition of an educator’s research, teaching, or service-based contribution to the field. This is important for tenure and promotion candidates whose institutions expect evidence of excellence, often through external forms of validation. Beyond this, design and designers benefit from institutions that recognize the full scope of our work. In my case, much of my research and teaching seeks to build bridges between historical research and contemporary practice. Receiving the DI teaching award has helped me communicate the value of design and design history to my colleagues, peers, partners, and potential students.

Taekyeom Lee’s reflection

Some ideas need time, space, and the right community to develop. For my project, that place has been Design Incubation. I am honored to join in celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Awards and deeply grateful to the organization, nominators, and reviewers who continue to recognize and uplift design research, especially work that does not always follow a straight line.

I first encountered Design Incubation at the 2017 UCDA Design Education Summit in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. The founders’ vision, voiced through a panel presentation, made a lasting impression. In 2020, at Colloquium 6.3, I shared an early version of what would become Tangible Graphic Design. That moment gave the project language, direction, reflection, and confidence.

Receiving the Design Incubation Award in 2022 was a meaningful moment of affirmation. It validated not only the outcome of my work but also the process behind it—messy, iterative, and deeply personal. The recognition opened new opportunities, broadened the visibility of my research, and encouraged me to continue asking challenging, yet necessary, questions through design.

The Design Incubation Awards offer more than recognition; they provide a platform for growth. As the program marks a decade of generous and inclusive vision, I invite designers, educators, and researchers to help shape its next chapter. Together, we can build a more expansive, reflective, and impactful future for design research.

Kareem Collie’s reflection

In 2017, I was acknowledged by Design Incubation’s Scholarship: Creative Work Award after finishing my graduate work at NYU. The project was rooted in personal and intellectual growth, not in advancing my career. While I felt fulfilled, I soon realized my questions needed to translate into something meaningful beyond myself. I needed to share a story that others could connect with.

The recognition from Design Incubation marked a turning point. It helped me understand that my inquiry held value, and that I could shape it into something legible to the world. That award gave me clarity at a time of uncertainty, showing me that my work had potential to resonate beyond academia. It transformed what had felt internal and esoteric into something that could live beyond the studio or classroom. It helped me to move forward with more direction and a clearer voice, carrying with me not just the confidence of that moment, but a broader understanding of the impact creative inquiry can have on the world.

Jenn Stucker’s reflection

Design Incubation’s Communication Design Educators Awards for my collaborative projects, The Sit&Tell Project (awarded in 2017) and In The Round (awarded in 2023), in the service category, are meaningful recognitions. A significant mode of my academic work centers around Design as a Scholarship of Engagement, where my creative and collaborative work aims to foster growth in communities, spotlight the value of design, and contribute to the common good of the design discipline and the public. In these works, the designer and communities work together locally, and accolades from such a reputable organization as Design Incubation provide illumination and validation of the project’s impact and significance to extend beyond the project’s regional situatedness. As there are few venues where design educators can receive recognition for comprehensive service work by a jury of academic peers nationally, Design Incubation’s acknowledgment through a service category amplifies value to institutional and community stakeholder investments in Scholarship of Engagement projects and fortifies confidence for future opportunities.

How Do Design Research Journals Evaluate the Quality of Submitted Articles?

“Ask the Expert” is a series looking at various considerations and practices related to design research, scholarship, publication, and other academic topics.

We invited Design and Culture’s Principal Reviews Editor, Maggie Taft, to respond to questions about different aspects of journal publishing. This is the first of a series from Taft, an independent scholar and Director of Writing Space, a community-based writing center for artists and designers.

Question: How do design research journals evaluate the quality of submitted articles?

Answer:

I think of this question as a two-parter: how do journals go through the process of evaluating submissions and what criteria do they commonly use at different stages in that process?

After an author submits a journal article, it moves through many people’s hands before the author hears back with the journal’s decision. Typically, a Managing Editor, who’s in charge of the journal’s day-to-day coordination and administrative work, is the first to review. The Managing Editor confirms that the article abides by the submission standards and style guidelines evaluating, for instance, that the piece meets the journal’s length specifications and that the topic corresponds with the journal’s. (You might be surprised how often that’s not the case!) Next, the journal’s Editor-in-Chief—that’s the person in charge of the journal’s vision—reviews the piece to confirm that it aligns with the journal’s mission and that, broadly speaking, it follows academic publishing standards. For instance, does it include research with citations? If the Managing Editor and the Editor-in-Chief think it looks good, then they pass it on to one of the journal’s Associate Editors. Associate Editors, sometimes called Editorial Board Members, are specialists in various fields who collectively contribute to a journal’s scope in expertise, perspective, and geographic reach. They oversee the next phase of the review process, during which an article receives more thorough attention and feedback from peer reviewers. Typically, peer reviewers do not hold positions on the journal; you won’t find their names on the masthead. Rather, they’re specialists in the article’s subject area and thus are particularly well-positioned to evaluate its argument, methodology, and contribution to the field.

Different journals configure the peer review process differently, and most use either a double-blind or single-blind review process. Double-blind peer review, which is typically the most highly regarded within academia, means that the reviewers will not know who the author is and the author will not know who the peer reviewers are. Single-blind peer review means that the author does not know who the reviewer is but the reviewer does know who the author is.

When a journal sends out an article for peer review, reviewers are typically asked to evaluate a piece using a questionnaire. Every journal has its own version of this questionnaire—unfortunately, they don’t often make them public—but most ask reviewers to assess some or all of the following features—

Scope: How does the article fit within the journal’s purview?

Impact: What is the significance of this article for its field of study? How does it contribute to research on its topic? How and in what ways does it build on existing literature?

Audience: Who is this article’s primary audience? (For instance, practitioners? Design historians? Design studies researchers?)

Argumentation: What is the article’s central claim? Is it clearly presented and well-supported with adequate evidence? Does any part of the paper need to be expanded to make the argument convincing? Is the approach methodologically sound and appropriate for the subject at hand?

Accuracy: Are there any factual errors in the paper? Is anything misrepresented?

Form: Is the writing and its style clear? Is the paper sensibly organized? Are all citations provided and complete? Are images of high quality and adequately captioned?

As you prepare an article, you may find that answers to the above questions feel self-evident. But it’s important to confirm that they are also apparent on the page. To evaluate if they are, I recommend stepping out of our role as author and trying to approach your text as a reader. Reread your article and try to answer the above questions using only the information provided by the text. For instance, does the text name its intended audience? Can you highlight a sentence that states the article’s central claim? If so, is this in a place where a reader could easily find it, such as the introduction, or is it buried in the paper’s middle?

Approaching your text as though you are a reader can provide new insights into how effectively the text presents your article’s argument, methodology, and contribution to the field. These are the key things that your article’s first readers—the managing editor, editor-in-chief, and peer reviewers at the journal where you’re submitting—will be looking for.

Maggie Taft, PhD
Founding Director
Writing Space

Colloquium 12.2: CAA Conference 2026 Call for Submissions

114th CAA Annual Conference, In Person Format.
Deadline for abstract submissions: August 29, 2025.

We invite abstract submissions on presentation topics relevant to Communication Design research. Submissions should fall into one or more of the following areas: scholarly research, case studies, creative practice, or design pedagogy. We welcome proposals on a variety of topics across the field of communication design.

Submit an abstract of 300 words using the Design Incubation abstract submission form found here:
https://designincubation.com/call-for-submissions/

Submissions are double-blind peer-reviewed. Reviewers’ feedback will be returned. Accepted presentation abstracts will be published on the Design Incubation website.

Accepted researchers will be required to produce a 6-minute videotaped presentation that will be published on the Design Incubation channel. The CAA conference session will consist of a moderated discussion of those presentations.

The session will involve a quick 3-minute presentation overview from each accepted submission researcher, followed by a moderated group discussion.

114th CAA Annual Conference
In Person
Hilton Hotel, Downtown
Chicago, IL
February 18-21, 2026
Presentations and Moderated Discussion

Presenters will follow the basic membership and fee requirements of CAA.

We are accepting abstracts for presentations now until August 29, 2025.

Type as Cultural Bridge: An Interactive Fusion of Iranian and American Design

How typography and interactive media can bridge Iranian cultural heritage and contemporary American aesthetics.

Narges Sedaghat
Graduate student
East Carolina University

In an increasingly globalized and diasporic world, the negotiation of cultural identity has become a central concern in design. Scholars such as Homi Bhabha and Stuart Hall have theorized identity not as a fixed essence but as a fluid process shaped by historical and aesthetic negotiations. Visual culture, particularly typography, can play a critical role in reinterpreting heritage within new cultural frameworks. This project explores how typography and interactive media can bridge Iranian cultural heritage and contemporary American aesthetics, contributing to broader conversations around hybridity, migration, and representation.

The project unfolds in two interrelated phases. The first phase focuses on type design as a medium for cultural storytelling. A full English A-to-Z typeface was developed, inspired by ancient Persian motifs, particularly the Achaemenid lotus. This typeface merges traditional Iranian elements with modern typographic forms, reframing Iranian identity not as fixed or nostalgic, but hybrid and dynamic, aligned with Bhabha’s concept of the third space that conceptualizes identity as a process shaped by hybridity and negotiation.

The second phase of the project centers on participation and interactivity. It takes the form of a web-based experience built with p5.js, where users type their names using the custom font. This action triggers a system that algorithmically generates Iranian-inspired motifs. Users can download or print their designs as postcards, transforming the experience from passive viewing to active participation.

By creating a custom typeface, this project aims to bridge Iranian heritage and contemporary design. This typeface serves as a tool for cultural exchange, and by inviting user interaction, the project becomes a participatory platform. It illustrates how design can embody migration, hybridity, and transformation. Ultimately, this research positions visual design not only as a means of cultural preservation but as a forward-looking method for negotiating hybrid identities and fostering inclusive, multisensory storytelling.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 11.3: Virtual Summer on Friday, June 20, 2025.