Design Writing: Reflection, Inquiry, Critique

Presented and the National Conference on the Beginning Design Student, April 2012.

Introduction

In the introduction to Writing for Visual Thinkers, Ellen Lupton opens up with a justification for design writing by stating, “I can’t think of a single well-known designer who doesn’t write well.” (vii) As designers, design educators, practitioners and scholars we understand this fundamental need to be able to articulate ideas visually, verbally and textually. But the potential for designers to engage in developing written form extends beyond the ability to describe the visual work, into the creative process itself. In other words, the process of writing can enhance designers’ creative and critical ability by encouraging different methods of thinking, explaining and analyzing the work that has been, or is yet to, be done.

Writing has the potential to enhance the creative and visual design process because it is an inherently different method of articulating ideas. Design as a visual form is primarily concerned with foregrounding meaning. Writing (and reading), on the other hand, is a process whereby meaning unfolds over time (Meikle 4). Visual concepts and processes focus on the accumulation of details into a large gesture that people experience holistically. As designers, we must build these details into a single concept. The process of writing does exactly the opposite. We have a big idea, and must break it down into a narrative explanation that readers will experience temporally and additively. The process of writing can help us to understand, as well as explain and rationalize, the concepts and meaning of what and how we are creating. The writing process can help young designers take the important detours that are necessary throughout the creative process. And as a critical endeavor, writing and the critical inquiry that goes along with it encourages young designers to look at themselves and their own work to understand its place within a larger design discourse. Engaging in this discourse can validate the young designers idea, encourage them to think more deeply about the work that they are doing and challenge them to think about their contribution and place within the field of design in an intentional and relevant way.

Grace Lees-Maffei, author of Writing Design: Words and Objects, suggests that there are three types of design writing: descriptive writing—where we are describing our ideas or projects in order to help explain them to others; interpretive writing—where the process of writing itself helps form the meaning of the design object whether in the idea or material stage of the process; and critical writing—where the object or process are critically analyzed and situated within a larger design discourse (4-5). The types of design writing that Lees-Maffei outlines became the basis for a writing curriculum developed in a cross-disciplinary class on design writing and publication at North Carolina State University. The course had two objectives. The first was to encourage young designers to analyze and evaluate their own work and place as a designer, and the second was to develop that into a larger dialogue on the field of design that would ultimately form the theme and curation of content for the newest volume of a student led and developed design journal, The Student Publication.

The Course: The Student Publication

Volume 6 (1956-57) and Volume 35 (2012) of The Student Publication

The Student Publication at North Carolina State University is one of the oldest student-led design journals in the country. The Publication began in 1950 as a tribute to Matthew Nowicki—a beloved professor at the College—and quickly grew into a forum for students to publish works and ideas on design that were relevant, timely and provocative. It boasts contributions from the likes of Mies Van der Rohe, Buckminster Fuller and Le Corbusier. In 2011, the development of The Publication was incorporated into a cross-disciplinary course on design writing—with the intention of creating a platform and space for dialogue on design methods, theories, and philosophies that were relevant to young designers as they emerged from school and into practice. Students in the course are responsible for curating, editing and developing the theme, content and design of The Publication. In addition, they are challenged to look at their own work, the conversations that they have inside and outside of the studio and the large dialogue and discourse happening in the field as a whole to find intersections, patterns and relevant topics that support or dismantle their own assumptions and those prevalent in the field.

Students in the course are introduced to the types of design writing that Lees-Maffei outlines through a series of independent writing projects that ask them to think critically about the work that they are engaging in. This serves as an entry point for conversations to help extract timely and current trends that might be further explored through the publication itself.

Encouraging Beginning Designers to Write

As visual thinkers, it was important to give the students opportunities to think about critical analysis and writing from a variety of viewpoints and to provoke opportunities for the students to see patterns and connections between their own work and thinking and those of established designers. Equally as important was to encourage the students’ comfort with the writing process. The individual projects given in the course were designed to build the confidence of the students in their own ability as writers and as critical analysts. The conversations that emerged out of the students’ independent writing and projects became the seeds for what was elaborated and decided upon for the larger publication, so the process was very reciprocal in nature. Beginning projects were intentionally described as personal, ‘low-stakes’ reflections, intermediate projects as case studies where the initial ideas were extended and validated by research and case study examples, and final advanced writing projects were more scholarly in nature, as the students became more confident about their position, ideas and articulation.  Each project was an extension of the previous one, so students engaged in an iterative process of writing, at each stage incorporating further evidence to validate their idea and becoming more sophisticated in their conception and thesis. In this way, they also became more comfortable with the place that that were occupying within the topic, and how that related to theory and practice.

Students began the semester by presenting a past project that they found particularly compelling, and which encouraged them to think about design or the design process differently. Ranging from ‘retro-futurism’ to sustainability, the students presented their projects as case studies linked to what they saw as current and future trends in design.

Drawing on these initial presentations, students were then asked to create an illustrated essay that articulated and extended their own perspective on the topic. Using Debbie Millman’s Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design as inspiration, the topics within these first projects were personal reflections and observations. In this way, students were not burdened with the pressure of having to be an expert on a topic. These essays ranged from highly personal manifestos on the struggle of the designer to individual observations on the difference between urban and rural.

Jenn Peeler, Illustrated Essay, 2012

In addition to providing the needed opportunity and context for students to begin to articulate their own opinions and thoughts on a given topic, and to reflect on what their process and design projects were trying to do, these activities also provoked animated and exciting dialogue and discourse within the classroom. This provided much needed forward momentum towards defining a unique theme for The Publication.

Continuing to extend and build the student writings in the course, the third semester project asked students to find an intersection between the interest area(s) defined in the first and second projects with the newly formed theme for the Publication, Form + Fiction: The role of design and designers in framing, shaping and reflecting reality. The sophistication of the theme and the way that the students defined it as a dialogue—and a dialogue that was recurrent in design history—showed evidence of an investment and perspective that far exceeded the wall of the classroom, the College and the University.

Prospectus to Announce Form + Fiction, Fall 2012

Students developed digital essays that gave seeds to how their ideas on design, and the particular topics that they were choosing to explore in their earlier projects, were shaping, framing and/or reflecting reality. Through the creation of this digital essay, they were encouraged to ask questions even more so than answer them. The digital essays themselves became provocations and questions that they would work to answer in a longer, written piece later—in many ways being the prompts or outlines for these later pieces. Moreso than the first two projects, the students were encouraged to seek outside sources or validation and include these voices in the essay, thereby directly linking their ideas to experts and finding ways to support their position both directly and indirectly. Throughout this particular project, the tone of the writing and the notion that their ideas should be suggestions and not dogmas took a front stage. Finding that balance between presenting a concrete, well-informed idea and tempering the inclination to be overly authoritative proved one of the biggest challenges. Equally as challenging was attempting to get to the essence of the argument that the students were presenting, and balancing that with a compelling narrative. More so than in the first project(s) this project also encouraged students to find relationships between words, images, time and sound. So as they were forming their own opinions about the topic, they were interpreting that into visual form, and then back to the written narrative. The building up and breaking down of this narrative and communication made it a particularly compelling project throughout the course.

The New Reality by Holland Ward, 2013

 Picture Under Glass by Grace Pledger, 2012

Conclusion

Throughout the course, students were continuously working through written detail, extraction and interpretation of core concepts for visualization. Working simultaneously in familiar and uncomfortable territory, students grew into their perspectives, and particularly grew into feeling a confidence about their own ability to articulate and develop their ideas. But most satisfyingly, the students became committed to their own role as a scholar and contributor to the field of design—able, willing and dedicated to what it means to be a designer, and what we—individually and collectively—should consider in theory and practice. Participating in the creation of The Publication itself was no small part of this transformation. As editors, authors, and promoters, their active participation in the creation and craft of a professional, student voice and journal gave them an agency that influenced all parts of the class and their own education.

In Design Discourse, Richard Buchanan explains the nature of design and design studies as an element of argument. “Rhetoric is an art of shaping society, changing the course of individuals and communities, and setting patters for new action…the remarkable power of man-made objects to accomplish something very similar has been discovered…designers have directly influenced the actions of individuals and communities, changed attitudes and values, and shaped society in surprisingly fundamental ways.” (92) As an inherently rhetorical device, the act of writing can reframe the design process from an internal to a deeply argumentative one. It can expand our view of design to examine its impact at various scale and contexts. It can change the perspective of the designer in terms of his or her approach to a given project, and it can transform our own understanding of the role of design and designers in shaping and reshaping place.

In addition to the ability for writing to help young designers form their own opinions and ideas about their work, a greater integration of design writing into our curriculum has the potential to fundamentally impact the future of the discipline. The field of design continues to rest on the edge of a pivotal transformation. Design and designers are now recognized for their strengths beyond the traditional disciplines and the creation of objects.  We are now highly sought after for how we think. As we try to place and redefine our role as designers we are looking to new paradigms and ways to think and explain what it is that we do. As a field, we are desperately in need of new definitions, and new language around how we describe what we contribute—to add value and help determine the future of the field itself.

In 1982, Donald Schön was calling on the professions to consider how reflection-in-action would enhance and advance professional practice overall. Moving from technical knowledge to reflection-in-action would, he argued, have “implications—for the professional’s role in society, his autonomy and authority in relation to his clients, the kinds of research likely to be useful to him, the institutional contexts conducive to reflective practice, and the visions of social progress and well-being which may be used to justify professional activity.” (287) Thirty years later, Schön’s advocation could not be more relevant to our field, as we shift what and how we are teaching to include larger connections to sustainable practice, environment, imprints, waste, culture and human behavior. As we prepare young designers to be the reflective practitioners Schön foresaw, new methods are necessary, and the inclusion of design writing as a reflective and demonstrative process has the potential to prime our students to be stronger leaders for our field.

If we believe, as Paola Antonelli, Curator of Design at MOMA, so aptly stated in her introduction to Design and the Elastic Mind that “Designers have the ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and social mores and to convert them into objects and ideas that people can understand and use.” (15) than we, as educators and practitioners, need to find ways to open up these doors for observation and analysis, and to deconstruct and reconstruct them through the visual and the written form. By writing about an object we “bring it into being” (Lees-Maffei, 4) and by writing about the theories, applications and futures of how we operate in design and as designers, we might do the same for our field.

The Student Publication, student digital essays and final written pieces can be accessed at design.ncsu.edu/student-publication

References

Antonelli, Paola. Foreward. Design and the Elastic Mind. New York. The Museum of Modern Art, 2008.

Buchanan, Richard. “Declaration by Design: Rhetoric, Argument, and Demonstration in Design Practice” Design Discourse. Ed. Victor Margolin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Lees-Maffei, Grace. Design Writing: Words and Objects. New York: Berg, 2012.

Lupton, Ellen. Introduction. Writing for Visual Thinkers. Andrea Marks. Berkely: Pearson Education, 2011.

Meikle, Jeffrey. “Writing About Stuff: The Perils and Promise of Design History and Criticism” Design Writing: Words and Objects. Ed. Grace Lees-Maffei. New York: Berg, 2012.

Millman, Debbie. Look Both Ways: illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design. Cincinnati: How Books, 2009.

Schon, Donald. The Reflective Practitioner. Basic Books, 1983.