Tag: #DIawards2022

Tangible Graphic Design 

Lee is committed to making the field of art and design more diverse and inclusive with people from diverse ethnic, cultural, social, and economic backgrounds.

Taekyeom Lee 
Assistant Professor
University of Wisconsin-Madison

The project, Tangible Graphic Design, was initiated during Taekyeom Lee’s graduate study. The eye surgery and the face-down recovery were life-changing experiences academically and personally. For a young graphic designer and an international student, it was a horrifying experience, especially the surgery. A gas bubble injected into the eyeball applies gentle pressure and helps the detached retina to reattach to the eyeball. It took almost three months to recover fully. After the surgery, Taekyeom Lee was fully healed, but it left minor vision issues. This invisible disability made Taekyeom Lee embrace the experience and initiate a new graphic design project with vision, tactility, design, and materiality.

Since graduation in 2014, Taekyeom Lee lost access to the ceramics facility. It inspired him to build DIY 3D printers to work with various conventional and unconventional materials in three-dimensional printing. The most exciting feature of these Do-It-Yourself 3D printers is that anyone can be a tool maker building affordable machines and customizing them for individual creative practices. The project was a self-funded low budget project. Since Taekyeom Lee SNS went viral, the project inspired many people across the globe to build their own 3D ceramic printers. During the artist in residency at the Internet Archive, Taekyeom Lee created and shared the detailed plan and instructions online to make it accessible to everyone.

Designers can use various printing techniques to produce visual materials and solve visual problems. Since the invention of printing technologies, type designers have spent hundreds of years developing impeccably proportioned, beautiful typefaces to use on flat and static space and print technologies to support the perfection of printed materials. Digital fabrication can change the notion of printed text and how we experience materialized type since the tangible type does not lie on the static surface or live on-screen as a mirrored image. Digital fabrication, particularly 3D printing, has become more refined, common, and accessible. These new technologies have introduced new tools for pushing the boundaries of typography both in terms of concept and medium. 3D-printed tangible graphic elements acquire characteristics such as dimension, structure, materiality, and even physical interactivity. For this project, various conventional and unconventional materials in 3D printing were used to explore both the challenges and potential for typography. 3D printed tangible type not only amplified visual but physical interactions. The tangible type provides engaging tactile experiences, which would be more intuitive, expressive, and memorable.

Humans have five basic senses. Sensing organs send information to the brain to help us perceive the surroundings and the world. The sense of touch is the first sense to develop, and we have the largest sensing organ for touch as touch occurs across the whole body. Visuals and touch are closely linked together, although touch is fundamentally a non-visual perception. Touch can enhance and reinforce the user’s experience with the text, and the idea has been done with traditional printing methods.

The 3D printed embosser and other tangible graphic design applications combine both senses. The concept of the embossing technique can trace back to the cylinder seal, invented around 3500 BC to make an impression in wet clay. As this new embosser is portable, affordable, and customizable, there are a few possible applications. It can be used for participatory activities for promotional events and campaigns. It provided not only visual experiences but also engaging physical experiences. Not like today’s digital printing, the process involves a rich tangible experience, which is more intuitive, fun, and memorable. As the outcome provides a three-dimensional experience and substance, with braille, it could be developed for people with vision impairment.

Through his research, Taekyeom Lee has tried to bridge different areas of art and design. There are more design tools and processes in different industries, such as product design, architecture, sculpture, and metal smithing that have been working with various physical media. The tools and processes those areas have developed could be adapted to graphic design education. An extension of the project addressed how dimensional typography could utilize Rhino, computer-aided design (CAD) software, and Grasshopper 3D, a visual programming language run within Rhino, could be implemented in design processes and methods for typography in graphic design education. They bring extended physical experiences in typography from computer screen to physical space to enhance the interaction of typography directly. The outcome of the method was exhibited via many exhibitions.

Diversity is more than just a popular buzzword in discussions about art and design, and education. Taekyeom Lee is committed to making the field of art and design more diverse and inclusive with people from diverse ethnic, cultural, social, and economic backgrounds. As a first-generation college student and a foreign-born (Korean-born) designer, Taekyeom Lee wants to create opportunities to appreciate and embrace diversity and inclusion. Hangul Alphabet typeface highlights intercultural and bicultural experiences between Korean and English. Currently, Taekyeom Lee is working on a collaborative project with a group of design educators.He is very interested in supporting the new generation of artists and designers using emerging technologies such as 3D printing, digital fabrication, and creative coding.

The next chapter of my research is called Graphic Design for Accessibility, based on years of experience working with tactility as a graphic designer. Crafting better and more accessible experiences for people with low vision and vision impairment has been demanded. Fostering accessibility is inevitable. It will be developed as a regular course to embed my research and practice into my teaching and increase the understanding of diversity and inclusion for future graphic design students. The course will be an introduction to visual communication design for accessibility. Fostering accessibility in Graphic Design education is inevitable. This direction has excellent potential as a future design research project.

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Biography

Taekyeom Lee is an educator, multidisciplinary designer, and maker. He is currently an Assistant professor of Graphic Design at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received an MFA degree in Graphic Design from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research explores unconventional materials and alternative solutions to create tangible typography, graphics, and even designed objects using digital fabrication. He infused 3D printing into his research and has been experimenting with various methods and materials. He presented through national and international conferences, including AIGA Design Conference, AIGA DEC, UCDA Design Incubation, DEL, ISEA, IEEE VIS, ATypI, TypeCon, Education Summit, Tipografia México, and NCECA. His work has been featured in various media. His research draws attention nationally and internationally. He exhibited his work and provided workshops and lectures across the country and abroad.

Design After Capitalism: Transforming Design Today for an Equitable Tomorrow 

Looking at the field to transcend the logics, structures, and subjectivities of capitalism—to combine design entrepreneurship with social empowerment.

Matthew Wizinsky
Associate Professor
Graduate Program Director (MDes) & Associate Professor
University of Cincinnati

‘Design after Capitalism’ was published in 2022 by The MIT Press. This major work of design theory analyzes contemporary design practices through the lens of political economy. Drawing on insights from sociology, philosophy, economics, political science, history, environmental and sustainability studies, and critical theory, the book lays out core principles for a modified and postcapitalist approach to design.

The designed things, experiences, and symbols that we use to perceive, understand, and perform our everyday lives are much more than just props. They directly shape how we live. In Design after Capitalism, Matthew Wizinsky argues that the world of industrial capitalism that gave birth to modern design has been dramatically transformed. Design today needs to reorient itself toward deliberate transitions of everyday politics, social relations, and economies. Looking at design through the lens of political economy, Wizinsky calls for the field to transcend the logics, structures, and subjectivities of capitalism—to combine design entrepreneurship with social empowerment in order to facilitate new ways of producing those things, symbols, and experiences that make up everyday life.

After analyzing the parallel histories of capitalism and design, Wizinsky offers some historical examples of anticapitalist, noncapitalist, and postcapitalist models of design practice. These range from the British Arts and Crafts movement of the nineteenth century to contemporary practices of growing furniture or biotextiles and automated forms of production. Drawing on insights from sociology, philosophy, economics, political science, history, environmental and sustainability studies, and critical theory—fields not usually seen as central to design—he lays out core principles for postcapitalist design; offers strategies for applying these principles to the three layers of project, practice, and discipline; and provides a set of practical guidelines for designers to use as a starting point. The work of postcapitalist design can start today, Wizinsky says—with the next project.

Biography

Matthew Wizinsky is a designer, researcher, educator, and author on contemporary issues in design practice and research. He has over 20 years of professional experience in graphic, interactive, exhibition, and experiential design. He is Graduate Program Director (MDes) & Associate Professor in the Ullman School of Design at the University of Cincinnati, PhD researcher in Transition Design at Carnegie Mellon University, and Associate Editor for Visible Language, the longest-running peer-reviewed design journal. He is the author of Design after Capitalism (MIT Press, 2022).

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

An anthology centering a range of perspectives, spotlights teaching practices, research, stories, and conversations from a Black/African diasporic lens.

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

Excluded from traditional design history and educational canons that heavily favor European modernist influences, the work and experiences of Black designers have been systematically overlooked in the profession for decades. However, given the national focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the aftermath of the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, educators, practitioners, and students now have the opportunity—as well as the social and political momentum—to make long-term, systemic changes in design education, research, and practice, reclaiming the contributions of Black designers in the process.

The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression, and Reflection (BEID), an anthology centering a range of perspectives, spotlights teaching practices, research, stories, and conversations from a Black/African diasporic lens. Through the voices represented, this text exemplifies the inherently collaborative and multidisciplinary nature of design, providing access to ideas and topics for a variety of audiences, meeting people as they are and wherever they are in their knowledge about design. BEID is a reference for students in design, communication, and related areas of study, as well as a reference for diverse audiences, including but not limited to educators and academics from cultural studies, media studies, film, sociology, psychology, history, critical theory, and other social sciences.

Of particular note is the role of Sylvia Harris’ seminal 1998 essay “Searching for a Black Aesthetic in American Graphic Design” as a foundational piece for the text. In publishing this book, the editors have responded to her call to “contribute to [the existing] body of knowledge and support a generation of designers hungry to see their people and experience reflected in the mirror of our profession.” At least a portion of the wide range of work and research undertaken by Black designers has been codified in this text that we as design educators, practitioners, and former students wish we previously had in our collections and need for our own teaching, scholarship, and practice.

At the time the book was conceived and published, moreover, it was the first of its kind. The editorial team was inspired by a number of books on related topics, yet no other text captured both the diversity and breadth of Black contributions to design history and creative practice—past, present, and future—in one resource/anthology. Ultimately, The Black Experience in Design serves as both inspiration and a catalyst for the next generation of creative minds tasked with imagining, shaping, and designing our future. As author and critic Steven Heller noted, The Black Experience in Design is “A long time coming.”

The Writing/Publication Process

The publication of The Black Experience in Design began and ended in the midst of the 2019 Coronavirus pandemic. The entirety of the editorial team process and book production, consequently, was conducted via email and Zoom meetings across three time zones and with the aid of Slack and Miro applications.

The starting point for the project was a special issue journal focused on Black designers. However, as a result of editorial team conversations, discussions shifted away from a particular venue or format to focus more squarely on our collective goals, i.e., what we hoped to achieve through our efforts. Namely, reaching a diverse creative audience and covering a wide range of topics. A book provided the flexibility needed, and we subsequently developed a table of contents that spoke to the range of subjects we aimed to address.

BEID grew from approximately 50 contributors to 70, nearly doubling the size of the manuscript. Yet, the outcome reflects only a portion of the month of outreach undertaken, including interviews and rounds of feedback and editing. Importantly, we strived to build connections among contributors and editors during a period of cultural, social, and political upheaval; by meeting with contributors within our respective chapters and hosting writing sessions, we provided support and promoted a sense of community.

The Design Process

The initial illustration concept stemmed from the idea of Black designers being trapped within a box. No matter how hard we try to reshape or reform that box, it still remains present. The goal, subsequently, was to demonstrate this concept visually; the illustrations represent variations of reclaiming or breaking free from the aforementioned box. Each chapter has its own themes and related motifs that accompany introductions and individual essays within each chapter.

The typography of the book was thoroughly researched and considered to meet the needs of a massive, complex system. The moments of dialogue leave ample space to pause and reflect on the words and mimic the feeling of an actual conversation. The chapter introductions use a large, lean serif that dances around the illustrations. All components work together as a system to help the reader digest the information and enjoy the experience.

Impact + Outcomes

  • The retail store Target pre-ordered 8,000 copies.
  • The School of Visual Arts (NY, NY) donated $2,000 to help cover publication costs.
  • We launched a Kickstarter campaign that garnered nearly 300 backers and raised over $21,000, exceeding our $15k goal.
  • BEID has been acquired by colleagues at the following institutions and organizations: California College of the Arts, Cleveland State University, The College of New Jersey, CUNY College of Technology, Drexel University, East Tennessee State University, Inneract Project, Kansas City Art Institute, Kent State University, Lesley University, Maryland Institute College of Art, National Museum of African American History and Culture, University of Notre Dame, North Carolina State University, Parsons School of Design, Penn State University, Pentagram, Princeton University, Rhode Island School of Design, San Francisco State University, Tennessee State University, University Arts London, University of Connecticut, University of Michigan, the University of Texas at Austin, Virginia Tech, Washington University in St. Louis, Yale University
  • Via Kickstarter, BEID has been shared in the following countries internationally: Australia, Canada, Germany, Greece, Great Britain, Kenya, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, and Sweden.
  • As of mid-October 2022, BEID has sold approximately 5,000 copies.
  • An audiobook version of The Black Experience in Design is currently in production.
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Biography

Anne H. Berry is a writer, designer, and design educator at Cleveland State University. Her published writing includes “The Virtual Design Classroom” for Communication Arts magazine and “The Black Designer’s Identity” for the inaugural issue of the Recognize anthology featuring commentary from Indigenous people and people of color. She is also co-creator of the award-winning project Ongoing Matter: Democracy, Design, and the Mueller Report and managing editor of The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression, and Reflection.

Jennifer Rittner is a writer and educator currently serving as Visiting Assistant Professor at Parsons School of Design. She has been published in the New York Times, DMI: Journal, and AIGA Eye on Design; and in 2021 served as guest editor for a special issue on design & policing for Design Museum magazine. A daughter of women, Jennifer centers the voices of her near ancestors Bernadette, Aurea, and Dianqui in her practices.

Kelly Walters is a designer, educator and founder of the multidisciplinary design studio Bright Polka Dot. Her ongoing design research interrogates the complexities of identity formation, systems of value, and the shared vernacular in and around Black visual culture. She is the author of Black, Brown + Latinx Design Educators: Conversations on Design and Race published by Princeton Architectural Press and a coeditor of The Black Experience in Design. Kelly is an Assistant Professor of Communication Design at Parsons School of Design at The New School in New York.

Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel focuses on equity, social justice, and the experiences of people who are often excluded from design education, research and practice. She promotes greater critical awareness among designers and design students by introducing critical theory concepts and vocabulary into the design studio e.g. through The Designer’s Critical Alphabet and the Positionality Wheel.

Penina Laker is a designer, researcher, and educator at Washington University in St. Louis. Her practice and research is centered around investigating and applying methodologies that utilize a human-centered approach to solving social problems, locally and internationally. She is currently broadening the scope and access of design education to young people in Uganda through her DesignEd workshops and My African Aesthetic, a podcast she cohosts.

Kareem Collie is a designer, strategist, and educator specializing in collaborative and human-centered design approaches to capture, reveal, and produce visual narratives and user experiences. He is the former Director of Design and Creativity at the Rick and Susan Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity at The Claremont Colleges and is now a Global Design Lead at IBM Consulting.

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

This project communicates the vitality of acknowledging and learning about Native American cultures throughout the year.

Jenn Stucker 
Associate Professor
Bowling Green State University

Heidi Nees
Assistant Professor
Bowling Green State University

To situate the importance of Land Acknowledgment and Native American voices to the BGSU community, we established a year-long series for 2022 by hosting six speakers, one in each area from the Arts at BGSU: Creative Writing, Art, Design, Music, Theatre, and Film.

Our goals for the IN THE ROUND:

  • Educate our students and the broader campus and local communities about artistic expressions and processes with which they might not be familiar
  • Create space that is inclusive of Indigenous voices and Indigenous works that are currently underrepresented at our university
  • Contribute to decolonizing curriculum by offering opportunities for faculty to incorporate the guest artists’ engagements into their course syllabi
  • Connect members of our university community to Indigenous artists and help to build relationships with the artists that may foster further collaboration
  • Support BGSU’s strategic goals toward diversity and belonging

This project creates opportunities to enrich the learning, experiences, and perspectives of all members of our campus and local communities. Exposure to the artists’ works and techniques through which they share their experiences, worldviews, and reactions to the cultural and historical moments we all find ourselves can facilitate growth and dynamic learning opportunities for students, staff, and faculty. Furthermore, this project does not limit this celebration and visibility to Native American Heritage Month (November). While we recognize and appreciate the importance of this month, we also believe in sustained programming. This project communicates the vitality of acknowledging and learning about Native American cultures throughout the year.

Through this comprehensive project, the IN THE ROUND Speaker Series works to advance the contemporary presence of Native and Indigenous peoples to promote education, understanding, empathy, and reflection for the public good.

Creating, producing, and facilitating IN THE ROUND required:

  • Researching and curating the speaker series list in consultation with the Arts academic units
  • Regular meetings and email communications with a variety of stakeholders (approximately 800+ email correspondences and growing)
  • Fundraising ($44,000 for 2022) and budgeting for honorariums, travel, hotel, event rentals, photography, hosting, and promotions
  • Collaborating with the Arts areas, the Office of Diversity and Belonging, and Bowling Green community partners to coordinate events for maximum impact and reduce overlaps
  • Coordination of speaker invitations, travel arrangements, event agendas, classroom visits, ICS BG Ideas podcasts, radio interviews, and community activities at the Wood County District Public Library
  • Working with BGSU’s Jerome Library to produce LibGuides of collected research and resources for faculty, staff, and student access
  • Design of ITR promotional materials (website, social media content/posts, posters, thank you notes, digital signs, advertisements, post-event documents, and ephemera) to publicize the series and sponsors
  • Inviting university leadership to officially open the speaker series with the Land Acknowledgment statement and an introduction to the importance of creative work as a witness to our histories and envisioning new futures

The artists in this series engage in critical examination and exploration of issues facing Native and Indigenous Americans, including, but not limited to, sovereignty, representation, ecology, historical narratives, and present perceptions through a variety of artistic and expressive means. These outstanding speakers reached over 200 attendees at each event and connected their work to 1200 people from students, staff, faculty, and Bowling Green community members.

2022 In The Round Speakers

  • SETH THOMAS SUTTON, Artist. Activist. Filmmaker. Professor.
  • CAROLE LINDSTROM & MICHAELA GOADE, Author & Illustrator of We Are Water Protectors.
  • SADIE RED WING, Designer. Educator.
  • FRANK WALN, Hip Hop Artist. Music Producer.
  • MARY KATHRYN NAGLE, Playwright. Lawyer.
  • PAT PRUITT, Metalsmith Artist.

As creators of IN THE ROUND, Stucker and Nees soon realized creating a single-year event would not be enough to move BGSU’s Land Acknowledgment statement from words into action. Therefore, they have already secured $19,000 in funding for their Spring 2023 IN THE ROUND event. In March, the series will host Kevin Noble Maillard and Juana Martinez-Neal, author and illustrator of the award-winning children’s book Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story.

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Biography

Jenn Stucker is an associate professor and chair of Graphic Design at Bowling Green State University (BGSU). She earned her BFA degree in Graphic Design from BGSU and her MFA in Graphic Design from Eastern Michigan University. Her work appears in several books on design, such as Graphic Design: The New Basics, Introduction to Graphic Design: A Guide to Thinking, Process and Style, and Collaboration in Design Education. She has also received award recognition in numerous design publications and has presented at several design conferences across the country and internationally on her teaching and research interests of design pedagogy, community engagement, and creative placemaking. She has co-chaired two AIGA Design Education conferences and, in May 2023, will chair the UCDA Design Education Summit. In addition to co-creating In the Round with collaborator Heidi Nees, Jenn is pursuing her Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration at BGSU.

Heidi L. Nees is an Assistant Professor of Theatre in the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University. She teaches theatre history and studies courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In addition, she directs in the department’s production program. Her research interests include theatre historiography, Native American drama, representations of the American “frontier” in performance, and outdoor historical dramas. Heidi has published in Theatre History Studies, Popular Entertainment Studies, Theatre Annual, Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, and Ecumenica, and is currently working on a monograph about representations of Native American histories in outdoor historical dramas. Heidi is also the co-creator, with Associate Professor Jenn Stucker (School of Art), of In the Round: a guest speaker series featuring Native American and Indigenous creatives at BGSU.