Tag: design history

Stories from the Mchafukoge: Kanga as a form of Visual Communication

Kanga cloth, cotton fabric wraps screen printed, typically in three colors, that measure about 39 inches x 59 inches, are bought and sold in Tanzania and Kenya

 Ziddi Msangi
Associate Professor
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Vermont College of Fine Arts

My interest in this project spawns from my own cultural history, one that I revisited when I embarked on a creative writing exercise during a sabbatical in 2011. As I thought of colors and language, images of the Kanga of my childhood emerged. As a designer, I realized in retrospect that this cloth was layered with meaning and needed deeper scholarly exploration on my part. 

This paper analyzes the intersectional space between public and private that Kanga cloth occupy and the specific context that Kanga cloth are bought and sold in Tanzania and Kenya. Kanga are cotton fabric wraps screen printed, typically in three colors, that measure about 39 inches x 59 inches (100 cm by 150 cm). The structure of the kanga consists of three parts: a patterned border, a central design and a saying or proverb that is placed in a box, above the bottom border. They are produced in Tanzania and Kenya for the domestic market. Kanga are also produced abroad and imported from India and China. This study situates Kanga in the area of visual communication practice. 

Because Kanga cloth occupies a unique discursive space, a case study approach allows for the retention of individual, personal voices and the specific context that Kanga are used. The corpus of this study is based on life story interviews of four women who sell Kanga in the Mchafukoge market, conducted during the summer of 2018. Because of the historical nature of this textile, the interviews also consisted of viewing the private collection and allowing the women to “read” the fabric and describe their personal history in relation to the storied cloth. 

Kanga are significant because they inhabit an intersectional space between public and private when women wear them. A subtle, but important role of Kanga is its function as resistance (Beck, 2000). Women read the text and memorize it as associates with a certain pattern. So in passing, one may know the message contained on a Kanga without necessarily being able to read the inscription. 

Therefore contextualizing Kanga as a historical visual communication practice and a contemporary political act is significant for two reasons: it fills a gap in the literature and it brings an East African interpretative framework to the objects of study. The significance of Kanga are the weaving of intercultural influences. Symbols, images and language express both the present and past narratives of the peoples that form Swahili identity. (Ressler, 2012). 

Significantly, this project analyzes Kanga, worn on women’s bodies, as forms of intercultural communication and an affirmation of identity, which ultimately participates in acts of subversion and agency. This project considers Kanga as a visual text wrapped in history, social protest and gender politics. 

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 7.3: Florida Atlantic University on Saturday, April 10, 2021.

Design Incubation Colloquium 7.3: Florida Atlantic University

A Virtual Conference Saturday, April 10, 2021, 1PM EST.

Presentations will be published on the Design Incubation YouTube Channel after April 3, 2021. Virtual Conference will be held online on Saturday, April 10, 2021 at 1pm EST.

Colloquium 7.3: Florida Atlantic University (#DI2021apr) will be held online. Registration for this event below.

Virtually hosted by Camila Afanador-Llach, Assistant Professor + Graduate Coordinator, Graphic Design, the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at Florida Atlantic University. This event is open to all interested in Communication Design research.

Please view research presentations before attending the moderated discussion on Saturday, April 10, 2021.

Presentations

Forensic Abstraction in Israel/Palestine: the Graphic Representations of Bodies in Citizen Media
Liat Berdugo
Assistant Professor
University of San Francisco

The Spectacle of Violence: Illustrating Surpanakha’s Mutilation
Shreyas R Krishnan
Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts
Washington University in St.Louis

Visual and Verbal Communication on Sustainable Packaging As a Vehicle for Public Education and Awareness
Hyena Nam
Adjunct Professor
Visual Communication Department
Kent State University

Stories from the Mchafukoge: Kanga as a Form of Visual Communication
Ziddi Msangi
Associate Professor
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Vermont College of Fine Arts

Addressing Opportunity: The Landscape of Inequality
Mia Cinelli
Assistant Professor
The University of Kentucky

Shoshana Shapiro
PhD Candidate
University of Michigan

Understanding Racial And Gender Bias In Ai And How To Avoid It In Your Designs And Design Education
Sarah Pagliaccio
Adjunct Professor
Lesley University
College of Art and Design
Brandeis University

Designing Products of the Future Through Speculative Design
Mehrdad Sedaghat-Baghbani
Assistant Professor
Florida Atlantic University

Teaching Communications Design History Beyond the Canon

How do we avoid a “value this, discard that” attitude?

Carey Gibbons
Visiting Assistant Professor
Pratt Institute

The publication of Martha Scotford’s “Is There a Canon of Graphic Design History?” (1991), and the broader questioning of the idea of the canon across design history, art history, and other disciplines in recent years, has resulted in a closer examination of the study of communications design history. The need to move beyond the canon of communications design, which tends to emphasize the accomplishments of white male designers and dismisses the potential importance of anonymous works, feels particularly urgent following the Black Lives Matter protests and in light of the increasing attention being given to racial injustice. This presentation discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with designing a communications design history course. How do we avoid a “value this, discard that” attitude while still acknowledging figures whose philosophies or works had a seminal or pivotal impact upon the evolution of the field? How do we cover both mainstream and marginal forms of communications design? Additionally, are we going beyond artistic or formal qualities, and examining communications design as a history of ideas, as advocated by Tibor Kalman, J. Abbott Miller, and Karrie Jacobs in their influential 1991 Print magazine article, “Good History/Bad History”? After examining these questions, I will discuss my recent experience teaching communications design history at the Pratt Institute, where I have increasingly attempted to show that individuals from a variety of races, ethnicities, gender expressions, geographic backgrounds, cultures, and socioeconomic groups have contributed to the field of communications design. I will focus on my students’ experience participating in a class Instagram account (@beyondthecommdesigncanon), which aims to unearth and examine the people and stories of communications design that have been traditionally overlooked and not part of the commonly-taught “canon” of design history.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 7.2: 109th CAA Annual Conference on Wednesday, February 10, 2021.

Connecting Scholars, Building Community, Design Research Network(ing) | Design Incubation Affiliated Society Meeting

This open forum will have design scholars and researchers discuss various research topics, offer their ideas, discuss opportunities for contributors/participants/collaborators, and open dialog regarding multiple challenges within the design research field.

Friday, February 12, 2021
12:30 PM Eastern Time (the US and Canada)
Online ZOOM Event

This is the Affiliated Society meeting of the 109th CAA Annual Conference. The meeting is open to non-conference attendees as well. Please register in advance for this event.

Overview:

Please join us at The College Art Association (CAA) Design Incubation Affiliated Society meeting | Connecting Scholars, Building Community, Design Research Network(ing) virtually on Friday, February 12, from 12:30-1:30 pm (EST).

Design Incubation is a volunteer academic organization whose focus and mission are facilitating research and scholarship in design. We aim to foster discussion and collaboration among academics and industry professionals. We are a resource for those working and studying within the field.

This open forum will have design scholars and researchers discuss various research topics, offer their ideas, discuss opportunities for contributors/participants/collaborators, and open dialog regarding multiple challenges within the design research field. Design Incubation will also be discussing some of their ongoing work with the mission/focus of supporting design research.

Some of the questions we will discuss with panelists include:

  • How did you determine your research agenda?
  • How do your dept and institution define and support the work you do?
  • How would you describe/categorize your dept and institution?
  • If you were going to position your research within a category, would you say your work addresses: design theory,
    design history, design practice, design research (traditional graphic design, speculative design, UXUI, typography, AR, VR, creative computing, design solutions, etc.), design pedagogy, something else?

MODERATOR:

Dan Wong
Associate Professor, New York City College of Technology, CUNY
Co-founder/Executive Director, Design Incubation

Dan’s research considers the forms and methodologies of communication design research and innovates through the practice of communication design.

PANELISTS:

Heather­­­ Snyder Quinn
Assistant Professor, DePaul University’s School of Design
Director of Design Futures, Design Incubation

Heather’s research uses design fiction and speculative design to question the ethics of emerging technologies, challenge technocratic power, and imagine possible futures.

Jessica Barness
Associate Professor, School of Visual Communication Design, Kent State University
Director of Research Initiatives, Design Incubation

Jessica’s research focuses on social media, publication practices, and the design of scholarship, and how these relate to issues of power and representation.

Ayako Takase
Assistant Professor of Industrial Design, Rhode Island School of Design
Director of Master Program
Co-Founder, Observatory Design

Ayako’s design research focuses on evolving relationships between people, objects, and technology in the context of work.

Penina Acayo Laker
Assistant Professor, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University St. Louis
Co-Principal Investigator, Mobility for All by All

Penina’s research centers around topics that utilize a human-centered approach to solving social problems.

Registration required. Please use your institutional email to register.

Design Incubation Colloquium 7.2: 109th CAA Annual Conference

Presentations and discussion of Research and Scholarship in Communication Design at the 109th Annual CAA Conference 2021.

Wednesday, February 10, 2021
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM

This is a virtual conference.

Video presentations of design research, history, theory, and practice in the field of communication design. A live moderated discussion will occur during the conference. Conference registration is required.

Wednesday, February 10, 2021
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Live Q&As Online – Meeting B

CO-CHAIRS

Aaris Sherin
Professor
St. John’s University

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

DISCUSSANT

Liz DeLuna
Professor
St. John’s University

Presentations

Spencer Thornton Banks in St. Louis
Aggie Toppins
Associate Professor
Washington University in St. Louis

One Year On: Reflections on the Launch of the Chinese Type Archive
Caspar Lam
Assistant Professor of Communication Design
Parsons School of Design

YuJune Park
Assistant Professor of Communication Design
Parsons School of Design

Honeybee Colonies: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Studio Classroom
Mark Randall
Assistant Professor
The New School, Parsons School of Design

Design Thinking X Medical Education: Empowering Empathy for Patient-Centered Care
Hannah Park
Assistant Professor
School of Architecture and Design
University of Kansas

Edgelands: Using Creative Technology to Predict the Future
Jonathan Hanahan
Assistant Professor
Washington University in St. Louis

Adaptation in Design Research: Combatting Social Isolation in Older Adults
Christine Lhowe
Assistant Professor
Seton Hall University

Feminine Archetypes on Women’s Suffrage Postcards as Agents of Propaganda
Andrea Hempstead
Assistant Professor
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi

Teaching Communications Design History Beyond the Canon
Carey Gibbons
Visiting Assistant Professor
Pratt Institute

The Children of Loki: Pairing Norse Mythology With Contemporary Visuals to Create a Provocative Narrative

A body of design work, large scale prints, and hand constructed plaster objects

Jimmy Henderson
Graphic Designer
Jimmy Henderson | Design & Illustration

The past century, particularly the past 20 years, have seen unprecedented growth, change and development in our society, which has led to polarization, division and uncertainty. Communication designers have sought to make sense of the world and clarify this uncertainty—particularly through the use of a variety of narrative methods to illuminate issues, encourage dialogue and inspire change.

One of these projects—The Children of Loki—is a body of design work, presented as large scale prints and hand constructed plaster beer cans that act as modern-day runestones—that uses the framework of historical Norse mythology, paired with digital collage rooted in street art, vintage illustration and vibrant color themes—to create a provocative visual tale that presents information on current political and societal events and bridges the gap between disparate audiences through statistical facts and rich observational storytelling.

During the author’s extensive research of the Prose Edda—a 13th century written record of Norse mythology written by Icelandic scholar and lawmaker Snorri Sturluson—as well as modern rewritten accounts, they noticed a correlation between the myths and the social structure of the United States post World War 2 to the present. These myths serve as familiar metaphors that illuminate a range of events—from the economic boom of 1950’s America, to the rising cost of education, the growth of wealth disparity, the threat of climate change, and the conflict between multiple generations.

While mythology and other literary references have been used across design for years, notably in brands like Nike, Maserati and Versace, The Children of Loki expands further upon the use of mythology in design by pushing a contemporary narrative—the omniscient myth serves as an oracle of what’s to come and is made more real with relatable visuals and tangible objects from everyday life. This creates a rich provocation for dialogue by which to discuss and shine a new light on contemporary events and increases the audience’s ability to understand complex information by blending vibrant visuals and immersive storytelling.

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

Graphic Design Principles: A History- And Context-Based First-Year Design Textbook

Insight into the process of design innovation, influence, and interpretation

Anita Giraldo
Associate Professor
New York City College of Technology, CUNY

Patricia Childers
Adjunct Professor
New York City College of Technology, CUNY

In teaching first-year students, we find that most have definite “style” preferences. However, many have little idea about the nuances that resonate with them. While still in its development phase, research has begun into a design textbook to teach various design principles by scaffolding skills and design history to complete a series of one-semester projects. This book aims to bridge the gap between creation and context so that students can make informed design decisions.

Integral to this project is the awareness of the often-overlooked influences and lack of diversity in the cannon of graphic design. Students’ research interests will not be limited. Instead, students are encouraged to contribute to design history by introducing objects or designers that are not part of the cannon. The range of student contributions will create an overview of a specific time and place.

The projects include the development of a graphic image, a hand-drawn typographic project, and a three-dimensional or time-based media project. It culminates in the design of a tribute poster to a significant graphic or industrial designer.

The book covers many aspects and principles of graphic design. However, this is a book for a freshmen design course. The outcome is to open the door to how visual elements influence the viewer and solve problems and laying the foundation for true design thinking. With insight into the process of design innovation, influence, and interpretation, student will be better prepared to advance their design study with a better understanding of the layered process of design.

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

The Machine Hand

Contemporary type design history of emulating hand manipulation of a brush.

Ryan Molloy
Professor
Eastern Michigan University

Single-line fonts—also known as engraving fonts, pen plotter fonts, and stick fonts—have a long history ranging from architectural hand drafting to use on pen plotters and engraving devices. As applications of digital fabrication—cnc milling, 3D printing, laser engraving, pen plotters, and craft cutters—have become more commonplace the demand for single line fonts has increased. Majority of the fonts produced and used today are outline fonts, enclosed and filled vector graphic forms. In contrast, a single-line font is composed solely of single vector lines (not enclosed). In applications of digital fabrication the use of single-fonts significantly reduces production time because machine paths are not duplicated.

Contemporary type design has long had a history of emulating the contrasting strokes created through hand manipulation of a brush. The increased demand from maker communities for single-line fonts has led to the development and commercialization of new single-line fonts or tools to convert outline fonts into single-line fonts. However, despite the traditions of type design and the movements of the machine allowing the potential to mimic traditional form of lettering most single-line fonts are designed only for a constant stroke weight. This presentation will showcase a number of personal typographic experiments and typefaces created in an attempt to find novel solutions and applications to the design of single-line fonts. From pen plotters, to engraving, to the creation of letterpress wood type, and drawing inspiration from calligraphy to graffiti the work seeks to ask how can we further reinsert the hand into digital writing.

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

Decentering Whiteness in Design History Resources

A crowdsourced bibliography meant to help instructors of design history decenter whiteness in their classes

Hello! This is a bibliography meant to help instructors of design history decenter whiteness in their classes. It’s a Google Doc and anyone is welcome to use it for non-commercial purposes: i.e., to share it, download it, contribute to it, participate in editing it, copy it, or repurpose it.

This is the second version of this document. The first version is archived here. The original editors were a group of white,1 US-based design history instructors who began working together to assemble this bibliography for themselves in June 2020, in response to their students’ demands for design history courses that accurately represent the contributions of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and other designers and scholars of color on their syllabuses. 

When we shared the bibliography in August 2020, our presentation of it centered ourselves and our process rather than the authors and designers included in the bibliography, which is exactly the opposite of decentering whiteness. We recognize that the launch of the bibliography didn’t clearly call for participation and did not explicitly seek colleagues of color to join as editors and contributors. Further, we acknowledge that the formality of the document gave the impression that it was not open for change or contribution. We apologize. 

We commit to inviting scholars and designers of color to further shape this collection of design history resources and to promoting their involvement in the project. We also wish to thank those who have already sent us comments, provided critical feedback, and contributed to the bibliography.  We hope this document will continue to grow and change. It will always be in process. 

There are many other resources addressing race and racism in the field of design that inspired our work on this one; these include, among others, AIGA DEC’s Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion Resources Archive, Ramón Tejada’s collaborative project The decolonizing, or puncturing, or de-Westernizing design Reader V4, Kimberly Jenkins’s The Fashion and Race Database, and Rikki Byrd’s The Fashion and Race Syllabus. We support and have benefited from all these resources.

  1. We have elected not to capitalize whiteness in this document. Some sources suggest capitalizing both Black and White to suggest their historical construction as racial identifiers. However, given that whiteness has a less-consistent meaning around the world, and on the advice of colleagues of color, we defer to the convention of capitalizing Black, Indigenous, Latinx, etc, but not white.

How to participate

This document is open for contributions from anyone interested in sharing resources that they have consulted or assigned in teaching design history.  Many of the initial contributors added works which reflected their fields in U.S. and European design history, and there is a significant need for geographic expansion.

Contributors may share resources and may also join the team who manage the document.  Please use this four-question Google Form to suggest new entries, provide feedback, or correct your own attributions/hashtags if you are an author or designer of any of the works cited.  

Our goals for this bibliography are to:

  1. Focus on race and ethnicity, specifically, in teaching design history. Gender, sexuality, class, nationality, (dis)ability, age, size, and religion all have profound implications for the study of design history. But, at this historical moment in mid-2020, we feel that design history instructors’ single most urgent need is for resources about race and ethnicity. We have therefore confined this document to sources that explicitly address racial/ethnic identities and/or the intersections of race/ethnicity with other aspects of identity.
  1. Address the field of design history as a whole, rather than a single subfield. Increasingly many design history courses are being taught as inclusive of multiple fields—among them graphic/interaction, craft/industrial, textiles/fashion, and interiors/architecture—so we’ve made an effort to ensure that all of them are well represented in this document.
  1. Maintain a flexible, expansive definition of design. White men have historically policed the boundaries of the design professions quite vigorously, and as a result, “design” has, almost by definition, excluded the activities of people of color, among others. In contrast, we understand design to occur within a network of producers, laborers, intermediaries/mediators, consumers, and users, so the entries in this bibliography span the gamut from high-status, “professional,” public-facing, and innovation- and profit-seeking design activities to informal, everyday, “amateur,” private, self-fashioning, and convention-following design activities. 
  1. Use a thematic rather than stylistic or chronological organization. We propose that decentering whiteness entails (among other things) organizing courses around themes other than canonical Western styles, movements, and designers. The bibliography avoids stylistic groupings, and is open to new themes.
  1. Include complete bibliographic information. We hope that providing a complete bibliographic entry for each item—rather than merely a link that may go dead in a few years—will ensure this resource has enduring value not only for faculty assembling syllabuses, but also for students writing papers and scholars conducting research.
  1. Annotate. We encourage  annotation to enable readers to discern at a glance what each source is about and how it might be useful in their teaching.
  1. Use hashtags to facilitate searching. We’re still in the throes of systematically tagging each entry to make it easy for readers to locate entries on specific themes, regions, time periods, and groups of people. Notably, there are no hashtags for Western style names or movements, which is intentional . Readers can of course hit Command+F/Ctrl+F and perform a natural-language search for the words Art Nouveau (for example), but we suggest instead that they consider searching for the hashtags #1850-1900 and #1900-1940, which will reveal a wealth of other themes they could fruitfully explore alongside or even instead of a particular style.

Contributors

*Matthew Bird (#MB), RISD

PJ Carlino (#PJC)

Priscila L. Farias (#PLF), University of São Paulo (Brazil)

Michelle Everidge, PhD (#MCE), Witte Museum 

Richard Fadok (#RAF), PhD candidate, MIT HASTS (History, Anthropology, Science, Technology, and Society) 

Carma Gorman (#CRG), The University of Texas at Austin

Elizabeth Guffey (#EG), Purchase College

*Brockett Horne (#BH), Maryland Institute College of Art

Ellen Huang (#EH), ArtCenter College of Design, Assistant Professor (of Material Culture), Humanities & Sciences 

*Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler (#JKB), Purdue University

Elizabeth M Keslacy (#EMK), Miami University, Oxford, OH 

Anca I. Lasc (#AL), Pratt Institute

Berel Lutsky (#BL), Professor of Art, UW – Green Bay

Jamie Mahoney, (#JBM) Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts 

Erin Malone, MFA (#EKM), Chair BFA Interaction Design program at California College of the Arts

Yelena McLane (#YM), Florida State University

Lauren McQuistion, (#McQ) PhD Student, UVA School of Architecture 

Erica Morawski (#EM), Pratt Institute

*Gretchen Von Koenig (#GVK), Parsons/NJIT/Michael Graves School of Design

*Bess Williamson (#BW), School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Kristina Wilson (#KW), Clark University

*Victoria Rose Pass (#VRP), Maryland Institute College of Art

Phyllis Ross (#PR)

*Sara Reed (#SDR), Virginia Commonwealth University

Shelley Selim (#SMS), Curator of Design and Decorative Arts at the Indianapolis Museum of Art 

Peiran Tan (#PT), Editor at The Type, a Chinese typography and design media collective 

*Bonne Zabolotney (#BZ), Emily Carr University of Art and Design 

*Indicates current managers of the document

With a Cast of Colored Stars – A Talk with Kelly Walters @tdc

DATE: Tuesday, March 10, 2020
TIME: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
LOCATION: Type Directors Club
347 W 36th St.
Suite 603
New York, NY 10018

Through historical archival research and the act of experimental printmaking, Kelly Walters research aims to highlight the linguistic phrases used in promotional Black film posters during the Jim Crow through Blaxploitation eras. By extracting typographic elements such as “an all colored cast” or “with a cast of colored stars,” Kelly Walters is able to closely examine examples of segregation while also re-contextualizing them for new alternative platforms. In looking closely at typographic details, language, and gestures, identifiable patterns emerge pointing to shifts in communication styles and cultural representation in this area of poster design.

https://www.tdc.org/event/with-a-cast-of-colored-stars-a-talk-with-kelly-walters/