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Professional reflection and visual arguments for patients: Is graphic design really a critical practice?

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posted on 2020-09-16, 13:38 authored by Karel van der Waarde
This chapter attempts to frame different kinds of critical evaluations of graphic design. The basis is formed by the idea that a profession will prosper if critiques are an integral part of the activity of design. Based on interviews with practitioners, the activities of graphic designers can be described in two diagrams: the first describes a design process as ‘a development of a visual argument’, while the second shows that graphic designers undertake at least nine simultaneous activities to build these argument strategies. This description of professional practice is used as a base to formulate detailed comments about a specific designed object. A detail of a package leaflet was analysed to show that at least six different perspectives are relevant: designers, clients, the regulatory framework, the professional communities, actual users and their proxies, and society. Each of these uses its own value system, criteria, data, and approaches. The description of the graphic design profession, in combination with the six critical perspectives, seems to point to a possible shift in emphasis of activities of graphic designers. Graphic design can only develop as a critical practice when graphic designers integrate the value systems of others into their processes and results.

History

School

  • Design and Creative Arts

Department

  • Design

Published in

The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design

Pages

350 - 368

Publisher

Routledge

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Rights holder

© The Authors

Publisher statement

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design on 29 August 2018, available online: http://www.routledge.com/9781138189232.

Publication date

2018-08-29

Copyright date

2019

ISBN

9781315623412; 9781138189232

Language

  • en

Editor(s)

Chris Brisbin; Myra Thiessen

Depositor

Dr Karel Van Der Waarde. Deposit date: 15 September 2020

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