Dear Richard,
Klaus Krippendorff’s, The Semantic Turn makes a clear case about the role of discourse in design and its importance to design as a field of knowledge. Krippendorff notes the inability of designers to “recognize the importance of their own discourse” and how “the threat of a ‘hostile takeover’ of the design discourse is always present (36).” I use this book in the Introduction to Research Skills and Methods course for our MA students and always include a discussion on this very important topic.
In my doctoral dissertation, I also dealt with this from the perspective of Community and Context. I described how in archeology for example, it seemed to me that the organization and distribution of knowledge followed a more hierarchical structure. For example, it used to be customary that the Professor would “give” topics of research to his/her students. I did not carry on empirical studies in the field but it would be interesting to do so (a cross-disciplinary comparison of epistemological approaches).
The design community in this list can ponder whether Vthis is an example of intrusion or a genuine contribution to the discipline. My own take is that it is a contribution. Nevertheless, I also agree that the design of the book itself is rather poor. To note a similar example of a great and seminal book, take a look at the original edition of Jacques Bertin's 1983 Semiology of Graphics. (Horrible!) A new vastly improved edition was made available in 2011 by Esri Press, Redlands, California.
Visual Thinking for Design is a good textbook that provides clear, albeit somewhat simplistic, explanations about the role of biology in perception and some of the implications that this has for design, (in particular graphic design). We have been using this book (alongside with Colin Ware’s Information Visualization, Perception for Design) in our Dynamic Visualization courses. It is up to us to fill in the gaps regarding the contributions of artistic and humanistic areas such as anthropology, cultural theory and history among others.
Richard requested the author’s words regarding his involvement with design so I include at least the section in the Preface:
“Early in the writing and image creation process I decided to ’eat my own dog food’ and apply active vision-based principles to the design of this book. One of the principles being that when the text and images are related they should be placed in close proximity. This is not as easy as it sounds. It turns out that there is a reason why they are labeled figure legends in academic publishing (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.). It makes the job of the compositor easier. A compositor is a person whose specialty is to pack images and words on a page without reading the text. This leads to the labeled figure and the parenthetical phrase often found in academic publishing “see Figure X”. This means that Figure X need not be on the same page as the accompanying text. It is a bad idea from the design perspective and a good idea from the perspective of the publisher. I decided to integrate text and words and avoid the use of the “see Figure X” and the result was a difficult process and some conflict with a modern publishing house that does not, for example, invite authors to design meetings, even when a book is about design. The result is something of a design compromise but I am grateful to the individuals at Elsevier who helped me with what has been a challenging exercise.” (Page x.)
Apologies for typographical errors and hasty thoughts in the post but it is a very busy time over here...
Nice day to all,
Lily
………………………………………………...
Professor Lily Diaz-Kommonen
Head of Research
Department of Media/ Media Lab Helsinki
Aalto University, School of Arts,
Design and Architecture
Miestentie 3, Otaniemi 05021, Espoo
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From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Richard Herriott <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2018 2:08 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Gibson and affordances
About Ware´s book on perception: I am eagerly awaiting the debate on this book since the library at the DSKD has ordered a copy. I hope the investment will prove worthwhile.
Thanks to all for your comments on Gibson. It has been very illuminating and may even have nudged some of my prejudices.
Regards,
Richard
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