Tag: communication

Fuzzy Modes, Clear Communication – Radio as a Process, Tool, and Language for Graphic Design

An experimental practice that bridges the gap between radio and design

Matthew Flores
Graphic Design Fellow, School of Design
University of Tennessee-Knoxville

How can you use an inherently non-visual and immaterial medium to generate, communicate, and disseminate ideas visually? This presentation will explore the first phase of an experimental practice that bridges the gap between radio and design – in particular, the use of “fuzzy modes”, a term coined by Murray Greenman (call sign ZL1BPU) to describe radio formats which employ digital transmission but human-readable reception.

Humans navigate a digital world with an analog toolbox of sense and perception, a fact made complicated when most contemporary methods of communication are intended to be read, interpreted, and translated by a computer. Fuzzy modes exist in the unusual space between machine and brain, leveraging technology for transport, but relying on a human user for interpretation. In practice, I express images and text through a variety of fuzzy modes (in particular, radio facsimile, Slow Scan TV, and Hellschreiber), allowing the idiosyncrasies of each form to become manifest in the message. In this way, noise and artifact highlight the literal and conceptual distance between broadcast and reception, and the act of transmission becomes a collaborative conversation between designer, medium, and receiver.

Transmitting visual information via fuzzy radio mode is full of contradiction: it’s non-visual by nature, yet produces a very particular graphic aesthetic; it’s immaterial, yet reception is bound by a specific physical space; it’s obsolete and niche, yet it creates an opportunity to interrogate our interaction with the digital world. Because of this unique position, I propose that adopting fuzzy modes as a tool for graphic production can refocus our relationship to digital interfaces, underscoring the importance of human perception when communication is necessarily mediated through technology. By turning my design practice fuzzy, I demonstrate that these techniques are more than a dusty set of protocols for ham radio operators, and can become a distinct and compelling means of graphic experimentation and expression.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 10.3: Tenth Anniversary, St. John’s University (Hybrid) on Friday, June 7, 2024.

Assessing Student Learning Outcomes in an Interdisciplinary, Experiential Course

A conceptual model that empirically examines the impact of interdisciplinary studies, participation in experiential learning, and the role demographics on learning outcomes.

Denise Anderson
Assistant Professor
Kean University

This research project is inspired by co-teaching an interdisciplinary, experiential course with three professors and thirty-three students in Graphic Design, Marketing, and Communication, with a partnership with the New York Jets as a client. Using survey data from students in the course and other college students pursuing their undergraduate degree, we develop a conceptual model and empirically examine the impact of interdisciplinary studies, participating in experiential learning, and the role of student demographics on student learning outcomes.

Interdisciplinary studies refer to studies between two or more fields of study and involve students working in an environment transcending disciplinary boundaries. Experiential learning refers to learning through hands-on experiences, where students apply the theories learned in the classroom to real-life situations using higher-order thinking.

Factors that affect student learning outcomes in higher education have been identified as lacking knowledge in other disciplines (Fruchter and Emery, 1999) and working with an actual client (Coker et al., 2017). Other factors include effective team collaborations (Machemer and Crawford, 2007), student engagement (Kuh et al., 2008; Letterman and Dugan, 2004), motivation (Pintrich and DeGroot, 1990; Deci et al, 1999), study habits and strategies (Dunlosky et al, 2013; Kember and Kwan, 2000), to name a few.

The proposed research will support the important role of interdisciplinary studies and experiential learning in achieving favorable student learning outcomes. In addition, it will provide empirical support for Universities to offer more interdisciplinary courses and experiential learning opportunities to retain students and prepare them for professional practice.

This design research was presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 10.2: Annual CAA Conference 2024 (Hybrid) on Thursday, February 15, 2024.

A Design Conversation of the Interaction Between Iranian and American Visual Culture

A comparison between two cultural identities through distinct cultural elements creating a visual language that is cross-cultural.

Setareh Ghoreishi
Assistant Professor
Oakland University

Defining culture includes the mention of customs, beliefs, values, etiquette, and behaviors as well as the artifacts and objects of a given society. Craftsmanship of artistic elements including rugs, table cloths, and pottery is a major part of any culture and is dependent on motifs and patterns and forms that have their roots in ancient art and civilization. Therefore, different cultures around the world have different historical elements that enable one culture to be visually distinguished from another. As an Iranian woman, I saw how my Middle Eastern culture is different from the Western culture of the United States. Since I have come to the United States, I visualized a comparison between these two cultural identities through distinct cultural elements to create a visual language that is cross-cultural. I utilized design tools and found visual elements in the different consumer systems, food habits, folks’ idioms, language, behavior, and etiquette in both cultures. In multiple areas, such as motion graphic, packaging, and logo design, video art, and image-making, I collected Persian motifs, traditional architecture, and language interaction to convey messages and translate my personal cultural differences. I am showing the role of graphic design and art in this cultural juxtaposition through different ways such as subvertisment, typography, motion typography, digital imaging, and video art.

I intend to use different techniques in exploring multiple areas of personal cultural value and utilize it as a tool to convey concepts. Furthermore, throughout the series of the works, I ask the viewer to be familiar with different aspects of Iranian culture. The visual elements I have executed represent the ancient traditions in contrast to contemporary and modern life, which can be shown as symbols of two different lifestyles.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 7.1: Oakland University, MI on October 17, 2020.

Designing for Autonomous Machines

Alex Liebergesell
Associate Professor 
Graduate Communications Design
Pratt Institute


“The Future of Employment”, published by the Oxford Martin School in 2013, predicts significant displacement of human labor forces over the coming two decades, as computerization and robotics continue to migrate from routine manual to non-routine cognitive tasks. While designers fare well in the study’s susceptibility-to-displacement rankings, we will need to establish new “complementarities” with the creative and social intelligence capabilities of cutting edge robotics if we are to thrive.  The recent acquisition of Google xLab/Boston Dynamics and their proprioceptively advanced robots by Softbank, the Japanese inventor and domestic distributor of the emotionally responsive home companion “Pepper,” is just one indication of how quickly technological, market and social developments are converging to propel smart, autonomous machines into our everyday lives. These machines’ near-future capacity for causal reasoning and insight — and uncanny humanoid presence — will call upon designers’ expertise in shaping language, user experiences and interactions, all unique and generalist meta-cognitive skills that still define specific human advantages. Having shifted from a preoccupation with form to the construction of meaning, design practice — whether in communications, products or space planning — can seek to take additional steps in creating conversations, codifying behaviors, and defining new artifacts and physical ecosystems that are sensible, graspable and navigable to both humans and machines in innumerable settings. Moreover, by modeling positive speech and behavior, shared environments and common social values, designers, when creating and coexisting alongside autonomous machines, will do no less than encourage humans to recognize and cherish reciprocity, civility and labor.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 4.0: SUNY New Paltz on September 9, 2017.

Multi-modal Interface Design: Communicating Design Through Presentation and Review

Peter Lusch
Assistant Professor of Graphic Design
College of Arts and Architecture
Penn State

Danielle Oprean
Post-Doctoral Research Scholar
Stuckeman Center for Design Computing
Penn State

Multi-modal visualization has long been considered important for design communication through representation and presentation, yet it has not been explored through an interface. In this presentation we discuss the outline for our test of use of a new interface designed to provide a multi-modal experience of design representations through the presentation and review processes. This interface is being developed for use in an immersive environments lab, a unique presentation space that allows for large-screen display and virtual reality. Before implementing a new interface, testing needs to be done to identify issues and perceptions of how well it works. We aim to test the feasibility of using a multi-modal interface with advanced-level undergraduate students in the design disciplines (architecture, landscape architecture, and graphic design) as a way for them to communicate design through presentation and review. In this presentation we talk about how usability testing allows for the results of actual use of an interface to feed back into improving the overall design. Specifically, we will provide an overview of our application of usability testing in design disciplines to address our hypothesis that being able to view different modalities of design representation at one time is more meaningful to communicate design both during presentation and in the review process. Success of the meaningfulness of the interface will be explored through the TAM model (Davis 1992) of usefulness, ease of use, and behavioral intention. We will also present the primary end point goals for this study, including our human factors study, and our self-report measurement of actual use of the multi-modal interface through questionnaires measuring usefulness, ease of use, and behavioral intention.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 3.3: Kent State University on Saturday, March 11, 2017.