Iterating new roles for graphic design and visual culture in the university

This keynote explores what it means, and what it might allow for, to locate Graphic Design in the university. In some countries, Graphic Design—as a disciplinary practice—is well-ensconced in an academic context; in the Netherlands, where I live and work, this is not the case.

In the Dutch education system Graphic Design is considered to be a type of vocational training and therefore takes place in colleges of practical or ‘applied’ education, such as academies or institutes of art and design.

But what if Graphic Design—as education, research, and discourse—were to develop a more equitable relationship with other subjects in the liberal arts? What if, beyond its role as a topic for interpretative analysis, we deployed the methods, creative skills and sensibilities of graphic design as a practice to surface new knowledge?

As academic research finds it requires more embodied methods in its toolkit, and as design research becomes more investigative and finds it needs to know more about citations, peer review and data ethics, there are increasing opportunities for exchange between these hitherto separate disciplines, practices and pedagogies.

Furthermore, this keynote argues that the kinds of methods used to critically parse and synthesise data, images, text, and interactions in space and time through graphic design, are not just desirable; but essential to the transdisciplinary, multisensory method effort required to tackle the increasingly complex political and social urgencies of our time.