Author: Design Incubation

Font Design: Caribbean Archeology Inspired Symbols

Maria Giuliani
Associate Professor
Communication Design
New York City College of Technology

The Taíno Indians resided on the island of what is today known as Puerto Rico. Hundreds of petroglyphs or images carved into stone have been found here and in many of the other Caribbean islands.
Contrary to other known archeological glyphs like the Egyptian hieroglyphs or Mayan scripts, these are not part of a written language or system, but rather isolated images with multiple meanings. Many of these images seem to be literal, while others are definitely more abstract, perhaps used as part of rituals and festivities.
These symbols have become a great part of the Puerto Rican culture and representative of its indigenous heritage. Today they are often used in the arts, fashion, crafts, and are an integral part of education. I started my research and found books on the subject, websites with downloadable jpegs, and even a Taíno inspired display typeface (letters), but not an existing font that purely depicted the symbols. I wanted to create an easily accessible version of these. By transforming these symbols into a font, they can easily be used as a traditional dingbat, a decoration, paragraph separators or even stand alone as a simple illustration.
I decided to design a symbol-font based and inspired by these stone drawings. My presentation will show the progression of my work from pencil and ink to Adobe Illustrator to the Font Editor “Glyphs”.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 2.0: The City College of New York, CUNY on Wednesday, June 3, 2015.

Graphic Design in the Zone: Peak Performance in Picturing Sport

Jen Roos
Assistant Professor of Graphic Design
Computer Arts + Design
Mercy College
Founder and Principal
8 Point Studio

While much has been written about the significance of sport and graphic design in culture, there exists a gap in research examining their intersection. The cultural impact of sport and graphic design has increased and so has the importance of this growing body of design. The history of graphic design for sport reveals important cultural attitudes toward human movement, and contemporary design in this category depicts our shifting attitudes in the face of significant societal change. Contemporary designs for sport display an increasingly sophisticated and groundbreaking visual language for the poetics of movement through space. This modern translation of the experience of “flow”, or “being in the zone”, provides a heightened and visceral sense of great feats of modern physical prowess — albeit at a remove. Our current outsourcing of movement to visual and virtual realms and idolization of the promise of technology threaten to imperil our actual experience of physical movement and health on a global scale.

Individuals experience the seduction of motion more than ever by virtue of the rapidly evolving digital world and expanding global presence of sport. At the same time, health research indicates that we as a society are becoming dangerously sedentary. Given that we are increasingly detached from physical movement and real-life athletic experiences, we naturally seek visuals that represent the glories of the pinnacle of motion. We now need to ask if design and sport can work together to encourage — not just lionize — movement. Global entities such as Nike have begun to experiment with ways graphic design might inspire physical movement, an important mission that could have larger, positive implications for the role that graphic design can play in improving our future health across the world.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 2.0: The City College of New York, CUNY on Wednesday, June 3, 2015.

Espiritu, Texas 1886-2015: An Essential Part Of American History

Andrés Vera Martínez
Assistant Professor,  Cartooning and Illustration
Lesley University College of Art and Design
Cambridge, MA

The Spanish term Mestizos, meaning mixed, came into popular usage during the 16th century to describe the offspring of Spaniards and Native Americans. Vaqueros, or the first cowboys, were Mestizos and their cowboy culture has been mythologized and marketed; but too often stripped of the ethnic origins before presented for popular consumption. Tejanos, or the first Texans, were borne of the mix of Spaniards and Native Americans and were the original cowboys of the United States. This culture lives on today in Texas through the food, language and ranching culture.
Espiritu, Texas 1886 -2015 will tell the story of a Texas built upon the struggles and triumphs of diverse people. This presentation will focus on one chapter, Lamesa, TX 1961: Andrew Martínez.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 2.0: The City College of New York, CUNY on Wednesday, June 3, 2015.

Colloquium 2.0: Call for Submissions

Abstract Submission Deadline: Wednesday, May 6, 2015. Deadline extended to May 26, 2015.
For more details, see the Submission Process description. Email 300 word abstract to submissions@designincubation.com.

We invite all Communication Design researchers to submit abstracts for consideration by our panel of peers.

Design Incubation Colloquium 2.0

Event: Wednesday, June 3, 2015
City College of New York, CUNY
Upper Manhattan
10am-1pm
Check back for details

Please RSVP if you plan on attending. Space is limited.

Rethinking Graphic Design Education

Matthew Monk
Academic Dean
Vermont College of Fine Arts

After teaching graphic design for twenty years at a prominent institution for art and design education, I was given an opportunity to build a new graphic design MFA program from scratch in the context of a growing, up-and-coming arts college that is known for its successful student-centered pedagogical model through a unique and effective low-residency format. I led a team of faculty and administrators to build an exceptional and unusual program that is proving in a short amount of time to be a remarkably effective and satisfying educational model for design. In the process of developing the program, we challenged many assumptions about design and education to devise a structure and philosophy unlike any other program I know. This presentation traces the challenges and successes in developing the program, as it outlines the curriculum and pedagogical model, the educational philosophy, program logistics, academic content, assessment, and results of this unique model for teaching and learning.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.5: Rhode Island School of Design on Saturday, March 7, 2015.

The Next Wave in Publication Design

Christie Shin
Assistant Professor
Communication Design, School of Art and Design
Fashion Institute of Technology

In response to the massive growth of media consumption in recent years, “Immersive reading” has become the primary focus of the publishing industry. While traditional reading only involves seeing the page, immersive reading spans the spectrum with a more engaging experience that includes multi-media features. Digital publication created with Digital Publication Suite (DPS) is a content-centric application for touchscreen tablets and other mobile devices. DPS truly creates immersive reading experience by combining sophisticated text with video, audio, animation, and other highly interactive elements.

Christie Shin will introduce a newly developed course, Immersive Publication Design, from the Communication Design department at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She will explain the pilot projects from the digital design courses at FIT and showcase her recent digital publication for UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). In conclusion, she will present Interdisciplinary Digital Publication with the essential editorial design principles and fundamental differences between traditional print and screen-based publications.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.5: Rhode Island School of Design on Saturday, March 7, 2015.

Re-Defining Reading

Laura Franz
Professor, Design Department
Head, Graphic Design Option (Major)
College of Visual and Performing Arts, UMass Dartmouth

For decades, critics have predicted the end of the written word: “No one reads anymore!

No one writes anymore!” Yet from birth certificates to gravestones, from T-shirts to text messaging, the written word—and thus reading—is woven into the fabric of our everyday lives.

Throughout history, we have used the written word to record and preserve who we are and what we care about: possessions, laws, commitment, ideas, and memories. Words and characters, once impressed in clay, written on papyrus, and printed with ink, are now manifest in pixels of light.

The use of text messaging for casual conversation has exploded, surpassing phone conversation as the communication method of choice—suggesting that our personal connection to reading and writing continues to thrive.

People may not participate in sustained reading the way they used to (or the way we think they used to), but people read. They text, tweet, and post on Facebook and Instagram. They search for things they need or want to know. They get lost in stories.

People read what is important to them. If we define reading only as a sustained and literary activity, if we acknowledge only one kind of reading, then we measure ourselves against a fabricated truth. We ignore the actual activity and exclude people’s needs and desires.

In Re-Defining Reading I illustrate three common approaches to reading; reflect on how re-defining reading has informed how I use and teach traditional typographic theories and practices within the context of web design; and show how a subtle shift—from user to reader—can help us adapt knowledge from the old (print) to serve the new (web).

The truth is there are different ways to read, and they are all valid and important. As designers, we can support them all.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.5: Rhode Island School of Design on Saturday, March 7, 2015.

Small Disruptions

Andrew Shea
Adjunct Faculty
Pratt Institute
Parsons, The New School

Designers are eager to find solutions that are economically inclusive, socially progressive, and environmentally sound. And whether they call it social impact design, designing for social change, socially responsible design, or by another name, it usually implies that design makes some kind of impact. The essence of that “impact” is some kind of behavior change.

In my presentation, I will talk about what it means for designers to make an impact, since the influence of design remains difficult to trace and measure.

My presentation will feature research from behavioral psychology, creative placemaking, wayfinding, and user experience that, along with two case studies, will illustrate an evidence-based design approach that can lead to positive behavioral change.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.5: Rhode Island School of Design on Saturday, March 7, 2015.

Kanga as a Form of Visual Communication

Ziddi Msangi
Associate Professor
Design Department, College of Visual & Performing Arts
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Founding Faculty, Graphic Design
Vermont College of Fine Arts

Throughout East Africa, but especially in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, women wear wraps called kanga. They contain a central image along with a patterned motif and saying. They range from political messages, proverbs, and religious messages. All ethnic groups seem to embrace the form. In a traditional hierarchical social structure where there are prohibitions against women engaging in gossip, speaking out of turn and shaming, kanga are used as a way of circumventing these restrictions.

This presentation explores the intersection of private and public space these garments inhabit when women wear them and their evolution as a distinct form of visual communication.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.5: Rhode Island School of Design on Saturday, March 7, 2015.

The Queer Writing on the Bathroom Wall

Mark Addison Smith, Assistant Professor
Electronic Design and Multimedia
The City College of New York

The Queer Writing on the Bathroom Wall documents my typographic and theoretical process of discovering an instance of homophobic graffiti—gay fagget fucker die you know it’s a truck driver—within a midwestern truck stop men’s bathroom, translating the author’s letterforms into a coded-language system for the targeted queer community, and using my newly designed typography to “talk back” against and eradicate the source hate.

Cross-referencing design theory lenses of Sassure’s semiotics, Dunn’s graphic signal, and Meggs’ metasymbol against queer theory lenses of Kinsey’s bathroom, Foucault’s confession, and Munoz’s disidentification, my role as communication designer existed as analyst and visual-activist. I reappropriated the strokes, angles, and terminals of the graffiti author’s non-repeating 20 letterforms into a complete 52-character uppercase and lowercase alphabet based upon his writing style. Through a process of mirroring and overlay, I arranged these letterforms on top of each other to design a homosexualized alphabet of same-letter ligatures, or, same-sex letters having sex. I returned to the original bathroom stall and deployed my own response, let’s face it we’re all queer (a graffiti battle-cry from the 1970s New York City queer revolution), directly on top of his graffiti—to both reference the source of my redesigned typeface and provide the audience with a translation-key—in an act of eradication and reclamation. Through textual manipulation, I’m hoping to analyze the emotional baggage carried within the individual strokes of the author’s handwritten language, to uncover the latent homosexuality within his written homophobia, and to generate a letterform-based code in which the author cannot answer back.

Desire teaches us that the more something is kept as a secret, the more we are driven to uncover and interpret it. Design allows us to interpret it. Such is the nature of Foucault’s confession, and our desire—as interlocutor—to translate and assimilate…and, from a design perspective, to ultimately visualize identity-formation and reverse-discourse empowerment.

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This research will be featured as a chapter in Routledge’s Diversity and Design: Understanding Hidden Consequences, to be released in 2016.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.5: Rhode Island School of Design on Saturday, March 7, 2015.