Unit 2: More on Research Methods

This week has been full of exploration. In the following section I would like to give you an idea of the various areas and articles that I have investigated.

Internet Search:

A workshop that was held by the Association for Computer Machinery, “Artifacts in Design: Representation, Ideation and Process” identified the value of the tactile in the ideation stages of design development. In an age of technology, the challenge of utilizing such material was examined.

Jon Kolko provided great information on the design process. As one of the developers of the workshop on the use of artifacts in design ideation I was eager to become familiar with his work. His article, “Trusting the Design Process” is highly informative. Two major points that he introduced in this article points toward the way that artifacts and human experience can be good ways to generate ideas in our current industry.

http://www.jonkolko.com/

Gayle Curtis, provides some insight on design ideation in the video presentation, “Taming Complexity and Sparking Innovation Through Ideation and Design Thinking. She was another member of the group behind the ACM workshop on artifacts.

SCADLibraries/EBSCO host:
Article Database: Design and Digital Media

At first, I wanted to find historical material that presents the relationship that exists between graphic design and culture. One article that provided a good examination on the factors that went into design development during the early years of advertising and design was “Who’s Afraid of Visual Culture” by Johanna Drucker, 1999. This is an excellent resource that provides valuable information on the early methodology and the traditional practices in graphic design. The significance of social forces are brought to the forefront and related to the foundation of the industry.

SCADLibraries/JSTOR platform:

An extensive analysis of the manners in which graphic designers develop communicative material is given in the article, “A Step Towards the Reinvention of Graphic Design” by Gui Bonsiepe. A multitude of graphic design process approaches are documented and studied.

Textbook:

In my textbook research I looked into books that handled methods of ideation. One that described the various ways that ideas could be generated was Creativity for Graphic Designers by Mark Oldach. A solid background on the ways that the ideation processes can aid in the development of design.