I've been a bit quiet on this since my earlier post - I've been stuck  
at home with the 'flu, and I really wanted to look up a reference at  
work. I'd wanted to say that I was very glad that David's wonderful  
initial posting, and my somewhat flippant response, have brought out  
such a variety of interesting responses. I'm a relatively new  
subscriber to the list, and I've already found it immensely helpful.

I gather that this is not an unfamiliar topic for the contributors  
here, but if I may go back to the original subject of the presentation  
media for PhD theses for just a moment... While the idea of 55 000  
pretty (or un-pretty, thanks Daria :) ) pictures is, of course,  
fantastic, I think that my own PhD might end up looking a little more  
conventional in this respect (and this respect alone, of course...)

When trying to explain the difficulties I face as a designer writing  
about my practice work. I often refer to the 1984 book, "Information  
Design", edited by Ronald Easterby and Harm Zwaga:

"...practitioners, such as graphic/industrial designers and  
typographers, are not notable expositors of their own arts and skills;  
they have often been accused, probably quite wrongly, of investing  
their own craft with a mystique which can only be revealed to the  
uninitiated through the process of actually becoming a designer by  
education and practice. We happen to believe that this is not true;  
the real explanation is much more likely to be that those trained in  
visual expression find it difficult or unfruitful to expound in words  
what they actually did—the design is, in their view, both the  
statement of what they wanted to achieve and how they did it; for  
them, cloaking it in a descriptive veil of words is not useful and it  
is an anathema to talk or write about their work."

I'm not sure that I really think of it as anathema to write about what  
I do. In fact, I get a lot out of using research methods to  
investigate my work, and the written descriptions that come from this  
have helped me to clarify and situate my work in the past. However,  
Easterby does capture something of the experience of showing a piece  
of design, as we are so used to doing in our own field, to someone  
without design training, and being puzzled by their response (or lack  
of).

I'm always encouraged to see that there are some papers that do have a  
positive view of the use of design practice in PhD work. (if you want  
to use the terms practice-led or practice-based, please do, although I  
gather both are somewhat out of favor...) I'm rather leaning towards a  
view that I've mercilessly plundered from Owain Pedgley and Paul  
Wormald - that design practice can and should be encouraged to take  
even quite a central role within PhD studies, but that the research  
that investigates this work, and the theoretical and methodological  
discussion surrounding it, forms the assessable, and formal, PhD  
thesis. (Pedgley & Wormald, 2007)

Is this model really so different to a scientific PhD, which will  
often document a series of experiments? Our experimentation is just  
carried out on canvas or screen rather than in the laboratory.

Will.



References:

Easterby, D. & Zwaga, H. (ed.) 1984. Information Design. Chichester:  
Wiley.
Pedgely, O & Wormald, P. 2007. Design Issues. 23 (3). pp 70-85.

this second reference may be available here (not sure on access rights):
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/desi.2007.23.3.70




...............................................

Will Stahl-Timmins B.A., M.A.
PhD Researcher: Information Graphics in Health Technology Assessment.

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