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my thesis thoughts

musings and mumblings 01

A lot of what I have read around THE THESIS seems to emphasize the following:

• start with a focus on something you are passionate about
• do lots of reading about and around the subject
• connecting dots – especially the dots you didn’t expect to find

When researching a paper last term I started with wanting to investigate if social media was having an impact on reading. Fueled mostly by interest in publication/magazine design and the fact that the teens I work with seem to have precious little when it comes to attention span. What I ended up discovering social media actually being credited with enhancing literacy skills (at least in post secondary school levels). What is impacting reading though — and a lot of other cognitive issues along with it — the internet. Since the internet (we can safely predict) will only continue to expand in the number of users and the functions performed, these effects can be expect to persist and grow.

If print is being surpassed by digital media, does that mean the page  that I am so found of designing is on it’s way to being obsolete? Okay, web pages are still pages too, so that can be just as valid a canvas. But now I have to consider the impact on design that mobile media is having, where there isn’t one design, but a flexible format. Designers are being encouraged to let go of the idea of total control in deference to number of different ways digital media is consumed.

A couple of months ago I finally got around to seeing “Connected”, a film that explores many threads, not the least of which is the impact of technology on our lives and world. While my earlier research suggested that the effects of the internet on cognitive functions (focus in particular) were profoundly negative, this film suggested that the image-rich environments of the internet held huge positive potential. I’ll not go into too much detail on the point, because I haven’t had time to fully investigate. At least part of this point is that it is possible (Louise, don’t freak out) that reading is over-rated! There is connection (which merits further investigation) between the cognitive rewiring of our brain that reading results in, and the tendency to lose our ‘big picture’ world view and instead focus on specific problems in without consideration to the larger impacts. That goes a long way to explaining the puzzling schism between our great intellectual capacities and the horrors we continue to manifest.

So now I’ve got 3 big dots on my radar:

• magazine design
• how we read is changing
• positive appeal and impact of pictures

So now, as these different dots start connecting, my thinking is evolving (well, maybe changing is more accurate) and new considerations are starting to emerge:

• magazine design   page design
• the significance of images – is that not what page and layout design does – create a cohesive image from various elements?
• What makes graphic design an important device in communication. Is it possible that those attributes might be more important now than ever because of this cognitive paradigm shift.
• What are specifics of how our reading is changing and how can graphic design respond to it.
  in broad terms, skimming is replacing reading — I know the first reaction many people will have is rant about how wrong it is that this is occurring, but it won’t change the fact that it is.
• As designers our goal has always been to facilitate communication, we need to redefine how to best to continue to achieve that in light of the new realities of this digital age.
• Many aspects of page layout contrives to pull the reader into reading the story (images, captions, pull quotes, subheads) – what I suggest is the we need to invert our traditional strategies. Identify the significant content and make it obvious and immediately accessible — design for the new reading paradigm.
• Should be reading be swept aside in favor of other type of communication, existing or emerging — I’m not feeling at this moment that this is trajectory I want to pursue – but a part of my argument might be to argue for the printed word (digital or otherwise).

So that is where I am at so far. I’m cautiously optimistic about this direction, even perhaps a bit excited.

feedback etc. 01

Ericca Hope

Filed by Michele Buchanan at January 13th, 2013 under