Tag: design research

Analyzing Local Graphic Design History: A Pedagogical Approach

Students visit local and online archives, and conduct research online to contextualize their artifacts in local and graphic design history

Christina Singer
Assistant Professor
University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Undergraduate Design Research students at UNC Charlotte have been investigating local graphic design history as part of an ongoing project since Fall 2021. What artifacts do students decide to illuminate, and why? This presentation clusters and analyzes 183 local graphic design artifacts and topics that 61 students have chosen to research, write about, and contribute to the People’s Graphic Design Archive. The project teaches students about biases and factors that contribute to who and what has been included in graphic design history. Students visit local and online archives, and conduct research online to contextualize their artifacts in local and graphic design history. Through this process, students research ways of making, social movements, and graphic design history in order to construct and write a story for each artifact. Students review each other’s writing and create a class book, which combines their essays and sources with a collaborative timeline of the local graphic design artifacts they selected to research. The collection of individual choices that students make regarding what they choose to contribute to the PGDA’s effort to democratize design history has become a separate topic of inquiry for both research and pedagogical purposes. This presentation analyzes the students’ choices and the stories they tell.

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

Design Incubation Colloquium 10.2: Annual CAA Conference 2024 (Hybrid)

Presentations and discussion in Research and Scholarship in Communication Design at the 112th Annual CAA Conference 2024

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.

The colloquium session is open to all conference attendees.

Design Incubation Colloquium 10.2: Annual CAA Conference 2024
Thursday, February 15, 2024
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Hilton Chicago – 8th Floor – Lake Michigan (Hybrid)

CHAIRS

Camila Afanador-Llach
Florida Atlantic University

Heather Snyder Quinn
DePaul University

Discussants

Jessica Barness
Kent State University

Liz DeLuna
St John’s University

Dan Wong
New York City College of Technology, CUNY

PRESENTATIONS

A Plural Pedagogy for Graphic Design History
Kristen Coogan
Associate Professor
Boston University

Design Is Not Neutral
Grace Hamilton
Assistant Professor
Baruch College City University New York

From Bricks to Pixels: The Evolution of Banna’i Kufic
Sajad Amini
Assistant Professor
DePaul University

Convergence of Science and Art to Support Climate Resilience in Central American Smallholder Communities
Qiuwen Li
Assistant Professor
Santa Clara University

Sara Wheeler
Undergraduate Student
Santa Clara University

Designing Dialogue: Leveraging Technology for Cultivating Inclusion and Belonging in Classroom Critique
Jenny Kowalski
Assistant Professor
Lehigh University

Abby Guido
Associate Professor
Temple University

Assessing Student Learning Outcomes in an Interdisciplinary, Experiential Course
Denise Anderson
Assistant Professor
Kean University

Analyzing Local Graphic Design History: A Pedagogical Approach
Christina Singer
Assistant Professor
University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Uncanny Ways of Seeing: Engaging AI in Design Practice and Pedagogy
Drew Sisk
Assistant Professor
Clemson University

CFP: 2023 Design Incubation Communication Design Awards

Call for Nominations and Entries for the 2023 Design Incubation Educators Awards Competition.

Design Incubation announces a call for nominations and entries for the 2023 awards for communication design educators and graduate students 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 January 15, 2024 

ENTRY GUIDELINES

Entries will be accepted until January 15, 2024. 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
  • $20 entry fee donation

2023 JURY

Steven McCarthy (Chair), University of Minnesota

Helen Armstrong
Professor
North Carolina State University

Anne H. Berry
Associate Professor
Cleveland State University

Warren Lehrer
Founding Faculty
School of Visual Arts, MFA Design

Ana Raposo
Lecturer
ESAD – Escola Superior de Arte e Design
Porto, Portugal

Neeta Verma
Associate Professor
University of Notre Dame

BIOGRAPHIES

Helen Armstrong

Helen Armstrong is Professor of Graphic & Experience Design at North Carolina State University. She has an MFA in Graphic Design from The Maryland Institute College of Art. Armstrong has authored several books including her latest: Big Data, Big Design: Why Designers Should Care About Artificial Intelligence. Armstrong is a past member of the AIGA National Board of Directors and she served on the editorial board of the journal Design and Culture.

Anne H. Berry

Anne H. Berry is Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Design at Cleveland State University. She has an MFA in graphic design from Kent State University. Her research focuses on race and representation in design, and ethnic and racial disparities within the field of graphic design. Berry was managing editor of the book The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression, and Reflection, which was included in Fast Company’s “Best Design Books of 2022.”

Warren Lehrer

Warren Lehrer is a founding faculty member of SVA’s Designer as Author/Entrepreneur MFA program and Professor Emeritus at Purchase College, SUNY. Lehrer has an MFA from Yale University, is a writer and designer known internationally as a pioneer in the fields of visual literature and design authorship. His artists’ books and multimedia projects have been widely exhibited and are in many collections including MoMA, The Met, Pompidou Centre, and Tate Gallery. Among many honors, he is a 2019 Ladislav Sutnar Laureate, and 2016 Center for Book Arts Honoree.

Steven McCarthy (Chair)

Steven McCarthy is Professor Emeritus of graphic design at the University of Minnesota. He has an MFA from Stanford University. He authored the book The Designer As… Author, Producer, Activist, Entrepreneur, Curator and Collaborator: New Models for Communicating. McCarthy’s creative work has been in over 135 juried and invitational exhibitions and has been honored by the AIGA, STA 100 and Graphis Poster. He has published in the journals Design Issues, Message, Visible Language, Design and Culture, She Ji, and AIGA Dialectic, and occasionally writes for Eye magazine.

Ana Raposo

Ana Raposo is Lecturer at art and design academy ESAD (Escola Superior de Arte e Design) located in Porto, Portugal. She is a graphic designer, educator and design researcher who has a PhD from Central Saint Martins / University of the Arts, London. Raposo has published a number of journal articles about punk rock music graphics, facism and politics and has presented at the Design History Society conference and the Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association national conference.

Neeta Verma

Neeta Verma is an Associate Professor of Visual Communication Design at the University of Notre Dame. She has an MFA from Yale University. Verma’s areas of research and teaching explore the critical use of design as a tool for social equity and justice. She has been the recipient of numerous awards. Her professional design work includes clients such as the American Red Cross, Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, Liberty Science Center, The New York Botanical Garden, The New York Public Library, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Wildlife Conservation Society.

Designing Your Research Agenda (DYRA) 3.1

Design scholars and researchers discuss various aspects of their research agendas

Friday, November 17, 2023
12pm Eastern / 11am Central
Virtual Event

Designing Your Research Agenda is a panel discussion and open forum for design scholars and researchers to discuss various aspects of their research agendas. We aim to open a dialog regarding multiple challenges of discovering one’s design research inquiry. Designing Your Research Agenda is an ongoing design research event series.

  • Ayako Maruyama (RISD)
  • Nate Matteson  (DePaul University)
  • Johanna Mehl (TU Dresden)

Some of the questions we will discuss with panelists include:

  • How did you determine your research agenda (high-level timeline of your career/trajectory)
  • How do you define research and why do you think it matters/for society, the field, and yourself?
  • How do your department and institution define and support the work you do?
  • How would you describe/categorize your department and institution?
  • If you were going to position your work within a category, would you say your research 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, or something else?
  • What barriers (if any) exist at your institution or in the field for creating and disseminating your research?

Moderators

Jessica Barness
Kent State University

Heather Snyder Quinn
DePaul University

Biographies

Ayako Maruyama
Rhode Island School of Design

Ayako Maruyama (she/her) is a Filipina-Japanese designer, educator, and illustrator whose practice revolves around intentional collaboration, reflection, collective recovery, maintenance, and repair within the design domain. Working with organizers, artists, designers, students, and planners, Ayako’s involvement with the Design Studio for Social Intervention commenced in 2012. Notably, she recently co-authored and co-illustrated the published book, “Ideas Arrangements Effects: Systems Design and Social Justice.”

Ayako and her team at the Design Studio for Social Intervention focus on creating public engagement strategies that prioritize community development without displacement, along with reimagining public spaces at the Design Gym. With a rich background, Ayako has conducted numerous zine workshops, contributed as a faculty member at Boston University’s City Planning and Urban Affairs program since 2013, and initiated the annual Experience of Public Engagement studio at RISD in 2017.

Having served as an Urbanist in Residence and currently being part of the Collective Recovery Team at the University of Orange, Ayako holds a position as a Board Member at the institution. Additionally, she serves as an Assistant Professor in the Industrial Design department at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she imparts knowledge through teaching graduate thesis studio, foundational, and advanced design studios.

Nate Matteson 
DePaul University

Nathan Matteson is an Associate professor at DePaul University’s School of Design; a co-director of DePaul’s ‘Scandinavia: design, landscape, and society’ study abroad program; a researcher with the Center for robust decision-making in climate and energy policy at the University of Chicago; and a principal and designer at Obstructures. He is a ruthlessly collaborative designer whose work merrily ignores the perceived boundaries among disciplines, and is currently engaged with dead Swedish architects, guitars, the US energy sector, obstacles, and objects in the distance. His practice situates itself at an intersection amongst intersections, dead ends, superhighways, and goat paths, wringing its metaphorical hands over the relationships among computation, intention, materiality, and immateriality.

Johanna Mehl
TU Dresden

Johanna Mehl (she/her) is a designer, scholar, and educator interested in the politics and relations that take shape through and around design practices. She holds a B.A. in Communication Design and an M.A. in Art and Design Studies. Besides her artistic and curatorial practice, she has taught in the fields of digital media, culture studies, and design theory at different design schools across Europe. She is an editorial board member of the Design+Posthumanism Network and part of the research group Against Catastrophe. She holds research fellowship at TU Dresden where she is a  PhD candidate at the Chair for Digital Cultures. Her dissertation is about design responses to the climate crisis and stems from critiques of design that acknowledge its entanglements not only with the material realities, but also the geopolitical, psychological, and social conditions of climate change.

https://tu-dresden.de/gsw/slk/germanistik/digitalcultures/forschung/research-projects/the-world-as-a-design-problem

Colloquium 10.2: CAA Conference 2024 Call for Submissions

112th CAA Annual Conference, Virtual Format.
Deadline for abstract submissions: August 31, 2023

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 (indicating preference for virtual or in-person session):
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.

For the virtual session, 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.

In-person sessions would involve 6-minute presentations from each accepted submission researcher, followed by a moderated group discussion.

112th CAA Annual Conference
Virtual and Chicago, IL
February 14-17, 2024
Recorded Presentations and
Live Moderated Discussion Online

Final format of conference event will be determined at a later date. Presenters will follow the basic membership and fee requirements of CAA.

We are accepting abstracts for presentations now until August 31, 2023.

The 2022 Design Incubation Communication Educators Design Awards

2022 Design Incubation Educators Awards competition in 4 categories: Creative Work, Published Research, Teaching, Service

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2022 Communication Design Educators Awards!

SCHOLARSHIP: PUBLICATIONS

The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression, and Reflection 

Anne H. Berry
Associate Professor
Cleveland State University

Jennifer Rittner
Visiting Assistant Professor 
Parsons School of Design

Kelly Walters
Assistant Professor of Communication Design 
Parsons School of Design

Lesley-Ann Noel, PhD
Assistant Professor
NC State University

Penina Laker 
Assistant Professor
Washington University in St. Louis

Kareem Collie
User Experience Design Lead
IBM

Design after Capitalism: Transforming Design Today for an Equitable Tomorrow 
Matthew Wizinsky
Associate Professor
Graduate Program Director (MDes) & Associate Professor
University of Cincinnati

SCHOLARSHIP: CREATIVE PRODUCTION

Tangible Graphic Design 
Taekyeom Lee 
Assistant Professor
University of Wisconsin-Madison

TEACHING

no award

SERVICE

In the Round Series // Moving A Land Acknowledgment Statement Toward Action and Practice

Jenn Stucker 
Associate Professor
Bowling Green State University

Heidi Nees
Assistant Professor
Bowling Green State University

2022 JURY

Steven McCarthy (Chair), University of Minnesota, 

John Bowers, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois

Maria Rogal, University of Florida, Florida

Kaleena Sales, Tennessee State University

R. Brian Stone, The National University of Singapore

Teal Triggs, Royal College of Art, London

BIOGRAPHIES

JOHN BOWERS

John Bowers is chair of the Visual Communication Design department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Through making, writing, and teaching, he explores issues of individual and collective identity. His making practice repurposes newspapers from public to private record, and billboard paper into forms that address their underlying targeting strategies and have been sold through Printed Matter. He worked as a Senior Identity Designer at Landor (San Francisco) during the dot-com bubble. His professional work has been published in 365: AIGA, Communication Arts, ID, and Graphis. His writing includes “A Lesson from Spirograph,” (Design Observer), Introduction to Two-Dimensional Design: Understanding Form and Function, Second Edition (Wiley), and Visual Communication Design Teaching Strategies, which isposted on the AIGA Educators Community website. He has been a curriculum consultant and visiting designer in the US, Canada, and Sweden.

STEVEN MCCARTHY (CHAIR)

Steven McCarthy is Professor Emeritus of Graphic Design at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He established the Design Incubation Communication Design Educators Awards and chaired the jury from 2016-2018. McCarthy’s teaching, scholarship, and contributions to the discipline include lectures, exhibitions, publications, and grant-funded research on a global scale. His creative work was featured in 125+ exhibitions and he is the author of The Designer As… Author, Producer, Activist, Entrepreneur, Curator and Collaborator: New Models for Communicating (BIS, Amsterdam). From 2014–2017, McCarthy served on the board of directors of the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.

MARIA ROGAL

Maria Rogal is a Professor of Graphic Design and founding director of MFA in Design & Visual Communications at the University of Florida. She is the founder of D4D Lab, an award-winning initiative codesigning with indigenous entrepreneurs and subject matter experts to support autonomy and self-determination. After over a decade working with partners in México, she cofounded Codesigning Equitable Futures to foster respectful collaborations among the university and local community in Gainesville, Florida. She continues to speak and write about social and codesign, recently presenting at Pivot 2020, and co-authored “CoDesigning for Development,” which appears in The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design. Her research has been funded by AIGA, Sappi, and Fulbright programs, among others, and her creative design work has been featured in national and international juried exhibitions.

KALEENA SALES

Kaleena Sales is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design and Chair of the Department of Art & Design at Tennessee State University, an HBCU (Historically Black College and University) in Nashville, TN. She is co-host of Design Observer’s The Design of Business | The Business of Design Minisodes podcast with Omari Souza. Her design writing and research centers on Black culture and aesthetics, recently co-authoring the book Extra-Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-Racist, Non-Binary Field Guild for Graphic Designers, alongside Ellen Lupton, Farah Kafei, Jennifer Tobias, Josh A. Halstead, Leslie Xia, and Valentina Vergara. Kaleena has a Master’s Degree from VCU Brandcenter, an MFA from Savannah College of Art & Design, and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Design at NC State University. 

R. BRIAN STONE

 R. Brian Stone is an Associate Professor at The National University of Singapore. His award-winning work and teachings are centered in the areas of motion design, interaction design, information visualization, and user experience.

Professor Stone is the co-founder of the bi-annual MODE Summit, an international conference bringing together motion design educators to present research and discuss the discipline. In addition, he is the co-editor of a collection of essays entitled, The Theory and Practice of Motion Design: Critical Perspectives and Professional Practice published by Routledge.

Prior, to his tenure at NUS, Brian taught at the University of the Arts and The Ohio State University. Apple recognized Professor Stone’s teaching with the Apple Distinguished Educator award. He is also a recipient of the Ratner Distinguished Teaching Award, The Ohio State University Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Order of Omega Faculty Recognition Award, and the National University of Singapore’s Annual Teaching Excellence Award.

Brian holds a MA and MFA in Design from The Ohio State University and a BFA in Graphic Design from the University of the Arts.

TEAL TRIGGS

Teal Triggs is Professor of Graphic Design and leads on the MPhil/PhD programme in the School of Communication, Royal College of Art, London. As a graphic design historian, critic and educator she has lectured and broadcast widely and her writings have appeared in numerous edited books and international design publications. Triggs’s research focuses on design pedagogy, criticism, self-publishing, and feminism. She is Associate Editor of Design Issues (MIT Press) and was founding Editor-in-Chief of Communication Design (Taylor & Francis/ico-D). Her recent books include: co-editor with Professor Leslie Atzmon of The Graphic Design Reader (Bloomsbury), author of Fanzines (Thames & Hudson)and the children’s book The School of Art (Wide Eyed Editions) which was shortlisted for the ALCS 2016 Educational Writer’s Award. She is Fellow of the Design Research Society, International Society of Typographic Designers and the Royal Society of Arts.

Sustainable Design Pedagogy: A Fifteen-Week Case Study of Sustainable and Climate Design Methodology and Outcomes

A look at foundational systems thinking.

Maria Smith Bohannon
Assistant Professor
Oakland University

Graphic design as a profession often perpetuates rampant consumerism through the art of persuasion, which is directly at odds with working toward sustainable and ecological discourse. To explore the possibilities of sustainable capitalism and foundational sustainable and environmental design themes, I developed a special topics course to understand and investigate the designer’s role as a climate design activist and sustainable designer. The emphasis of this course will focus on sustainable design thinking, praxis, and ideation with the investigation of green or recycled materials as part of the prototyping process—both print and digital—all in the pursuit of reimagined design futures. 

 This course study will look at foundational systems thinking from environmental design pioneers, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and how designers can successfully implement sustainable methodologies and utilize environmentally friendly materials to craft sustainable solutions today. By identifying and framing complex problems plaguing the world, we can examine the possibilities and challenges in addressing these issues broadly or within local communities. 

As sustainability and eco-friendly solutions are imperative for future generations’ ability to prosper, sustainable pedagogy must become foundational in graphic design education. By adopting sustainable design pedagogies, educators provide future designers with the tools—and understanding of sustainable design history, process, methodologies, and materials—to question capitalist tendencies and develop sustainable solutions.

This design research was presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 9.2: Annual CAA Conference 2023 (Virtual) on Saturday, February 18, 2023.

The Limits of Control: Nonhierarchical Modes of Making, Decentering the Designer

Exploring the creative networks between graphic designers and their collaborators — human and non-human.

Christopher Swift
Assistant Professor
Binghamton University

“The Limits of Control” is a body of work exploring the creative networks between graphic designers and their collaborators — human and non-human. Inspired by the work and writing of James Bridle, John Cage and Bruno Latour the project examines how the interplay of control and trust in a designer’s relationship with their network of tools (creative, cultural, technological) can be attended to, challenged, and reimagined allows us to break free of the traditional modes and methodologies and begin to explore new possibilities and new ways of seeing and being as graphic designers.

The black boxes which envelop our tools obscure the complexity and scale of the collaborative space we work in. This work makes the invisible visible and removes the designer from their imagined directive podium to be one among many in a creative and collaborative network of active participants full of agency and potential.

Showcasing case studies that demonstrate the tools of a creative network foregrounds their active participation in co-creation. Through coding in various languages new digital tools are created in which the agency of the tool itself is highlighted. These new tools undertake an intentionally nonhierarchical mode of making, decentering the designer’s role. Each study pushes the designer further away from a mode of control with the intent of asking—if there is collaborative care, respect, and trust in the creative design process then what new solutions, what new insights, what new ways of thinking and being may we discover when we look around from our new perspective.

This design research was presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 9.2: Annual CAA Conference 2023 (Virtual) on Saturday, February 18, 2023.

Graphic Design and Authority: How the Design of Documents and Signage Creates, Endorses, and Authenticates Power Structures

Visual authority can be used to validate any endeavor.

Claire Bula
Adjunct Professor
Boston University

The visual design of all legal and political documents, such as deeds, permits, identification & maps, employ a specific visual language enhancing their power. Design choices relating to layout, typefaces, symbols, embellishments, impressions, white space, signatures/certifications, and materials amalgamate to display power purely through visual appearance.

Because the visual design of a document can confer authority regardless of authenticity, It is important to analyze how visual appearance alone can be interpreted. A visual language of power exists and can instill feelings of hesitation, dominance, or fear leading individuals into subservience or subordination. Visual authority can be employed by true legal sources of power or used as a device to deceive or invalidly show power. Visual authority can be used to validate any endeavor, whether its intent is beneficial and egalitarian or manipulative and oppressive. Designers should be aware of how the use of visually authoritative means have been used throughout history to control, intimidate, and outright steal basic human rights and dignities.

Through multidisciplinary research across history, philosophy, political science, and sociology, I studied the means by which power and authority have been constructed in the United States. In addition, reading design texts and conducting visual surveys of documents employing elements of visual authority led to the creation of a diagram of design elements that create the library for visual language of authority.

In response, I authored a visual essay, designed a poster illustrating visual authority’s form language via personal documents, and printed risograph signage subverting authoritative signage through type and color. This body of work serves to document my research and surfaces questions about how visual authority was developed and how it is employed today.

This design research was presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 9.2: Annual CAA Conference 2023 (Virtual) on Saturday, February 18, 2023.

Chicano Independent Publication Masthead Design

Made during research visits at university libraries in Texas and California, hubs of the Chicano movement.

Joshua Duttweiler
Assistant Professor
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi

Alexandria Victoria Canchola
Assistant Professor
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi

We demonstrate how the design of Chicano independent publication mastheads from the 1960’s and 1970’s in the United States used the visual language of the Chicano community to engage directly with their audience. In publication design, mastheads serve as the reader’s first indication as to a publication’s purpose and credibility. Our analysis of these independent publications is based on observations made during research visits at university libraries in Texas and California, hubs of the Chicano movement. Based on our research, the mastheads used typography, icons, and organization symbols to attract readers in service to the publication’s goals of raising awareness on local issues such as labor inequality and racial violence. The efforts made by these publications not only mobilized their audience to fight for social justice but utilized visual means as a way of uniting their readers toward a cause.

These Chicano publications, not typically referenced in the traditional white graphic design canon, provide an opportunity to learn from past designers in a parallel time of societal unrest and analyze their successful methods of advocacy and activism. The political climate of the time cultivated diverse printing practitioners; far different than the editorial staffs we see today. Activists, many without formal design training, worked to combine text and images into design that would speak to their audience. By observing the evolution of masthead design throughout the Chicano movement we can observe the progress of the publication designers’ skill as they sought to increase their audience and ability to communicate.

By understanding the role and unity of the visual language of independent Chicano newspapers, we encourage designers, historians, and students to further investigate the design semiotics of community-focused publications both within its historical context and contemporary practice.

This design research was presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 9.2: Annual CAA Conference 2023 (Virtual) on Saturday, February 18, 2023.