Using typography as its exemplar with its lack of clear performance criteria, this article questions what is good design and how to measure a designer's accountability. Evaluation criteria are teased out from various perspectives: credibility, ease of use, stakeholder inclusion in the design process, respect for cultural dimensions and whether it…

The current objective, object-oriented approach to design is questioned along with design education viewed as a job-oriented endeavor. Instead relational knowledge and experience in a holistic sense, both tacit and explicit, are valued along with an appreciation of the unique character of the student. A new paradigm for design education is…

Challenging the common grand vision of Design, this article considers "design" as a humble re-forming process based on evidence to substantiate its results. The designer is likened to a tinker who respects previous iterations of a design and seeks to retain what is useful while improving its performance. A design process is offered,…

This article begins by describing a desirable design approach that is only practiced by a few designers today. This design approach is desirable because it responds to a society that suffers from a number of illnesses due to communications and artifacts that do not satisfy the needs of people. The article then proposes the kind of design education…

Dictionary compilers and designers use punctuation to structure and clarify entries and to encode information. Dictionaries with a relatively simple structure can have simple typography and simple punctuation; as dictionaries grew more complex, and encountered the space constraints of the printed page, complex encoding systems were developed,…

Situation: Graphic design education is subject to substantial changes. Changes in professional practice and higher education aggravate insecurities about the contents and structure of courses, assessment criteria, relations between practice, research and theory and teaching methods. Assumption: Graphic design education (visual communication design…

The following paper assesses the roles played by semiotics in graphic design and in graphic design education, which both reflects and shapes practice. It identifies a series of factors; graphic design education methods and culture; semiotic theories themselves and their application to graphic design; the two wings of Peircian semiotics and…

Critique is a communicative and sociable event in which students present their design and critics provide feedback. Students often find it difficult to explain their work and articulate their thoughts because most design knowledge is tacit by nature. If design is about new concepts, then in a critique, students have to describe and clearly present…

University art and design programs are branching out and creating cross-disciplinary programs and research centers that connect design students and faculty across various disciplines such as business, engineering, architecture, information studies, health sciences and education. A human-centered, problem-based approach to design research looks to…

In closing, the guest editors of this "Visible Language" special series reflect on the failures identified in the various papers and interpret what this suggests for design education and research in the context of changing practice. The failures cited in this series point out the fractures in our understanding and practices from user-centered,…

Arguing that the 21st century context for design is significantly different from the previous century, a set of structural suggestions are posed that can leverage change. Administrative arrangements are questioned along with the lack of clear differentiation or performance expectation among design degrees. While widespread, confusing and…

This article offers a large-scale view of how design fits in the world economy today, and the role of design education in preparing designers for their economic and professional role. The current context of design involves broad-based historical changes including a major redistribution of geopolitical and industrial power from the West to the…

Little historic context is generally provided regarding design phenomena; ideas, names, events and relationships are disregarded in design's typical superficial coverage; it is as though design exists in a vacuum. This paper seeks to put Helvetica, the face, the font and the movie into context by exploring its relationship to Swiss Design…

An area of visual communication that might be classified as a "design failure" is the visual presentation of information about "prescription-only medicines" for patients. This information is provided on packaging, leaflets, brochures, labels and websites. The practical issue is that there are problems in convincing patients to…

Drawing on the everyday experience of collaborative design, and using ordinary language, I examine the nature of design practices and rules, how they come about, and how we use them. I offer some arguments to suggest that our conventional ways of thinking about rules are wrong. I conclude by arguing that the practice of designing and doing…