Thursday, 13 October 2016

Seminar 3: Finding Research Sources

BA (Hons) Illustration • Context of Practice 1

CoP Theme: Politics

Search Terms / Keywords: Quantity, quality, design doing, design thinking, illustration, style, content, function, form

LCA Library

1. Zeegen, L. (2009). What is illustration? Brighton: RotoVision.
This title sets out to explain the underlying principles of illustration, as a means of visual expression, as a highly competitive industry and as a contemporary, innovative practice. What is illustration? is a must-have guide for practitioners and students, as well as graphic designers and other media professionals who require an understanding of the issues and principals surrounding contemporary illustration. It explores the discipline's history and its relationship with art, design and photography; it investigates how illustrated images are read and understood and how personal visual languages are created by today's illustrators and image-makers. This book also investigates many different contexts for illustration and the range of career opportunities that are open to today's illustrators.

2. Marks, T. (2009). Good design: deconstructing form and function and what makes good design work. Beverly, MassachusettsRockport Publishers.
The author polls several designers of different age groups and phases in their careers about what they consider good design to be. Each has selected an existing design piece they feel to be good, based on their personal definition of what good is. The author also takes a critical look at the design to determine if it is effective with its target market and interviews the designer of the piece to unlock the concept behind the design. By taking this backwards approach through design from the completed piece back to the conception, readers will discover why the design works and how they can use this information in their own projects.

3. Ambrose, G. and Harris, P. (2009) Basics Design: Design Thinking. Switzerland: AVA Publishing.
Basics Design: Design thinking is an introduction to the process of generating creative ideas and concepts used by designers in order to start the process that leads to a finished piece of work. This focus on ideas and methods favours a useable approach to design as a problem-solving activity. This is supported by practical work examples and case studies from leading contemporary design studios, accompanied by concise descriptions, technical expansions and diagrammed visualisations. Design: Design Thinking teaches the generation of ideas as a practical skill, vital to the creation of successful design.

4. Varoom: The Illustration Report. (2014). Style Issue 26. London: Association of Illustrators.
The 'Style' issues endeavours to answer the unanswered questions resolving around style, delving deep into its depths and challenging the definition of style - from typography to fashion, the preconceived ideas to the actualities, the creators to the observers. Varoom gets under the skin of 'style', from Creative Review Art Director, Paul Pensom's examination of The Ephemera of Style - the disappearing flotsam and jetsam of analogue culture such as trading cards and cereal box toys, to the work of French street artist Horfee who is described as an artist who, "takes the expected norms of graffiti style and metaphorically proceeds to shred them through a mechanical mince-grinder to produce something more organic and unexpected."


Google Books (Preview)

1. Rowe, P. G. (1991). Design Thinking. Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
In Design Thinking, Peter Rowe provides a systematic account of the process of designing in architecture and urban planning. He examines multiple and, often, dissimilar theoretical positions whether they prescribe forms or simply provide procedures for solving problems - as particular manifestations of an underlying structure of inquiry common to all designing. Over 100 illustrations and a number of detailed observations of designers in action support Rowe's thesis.

2. Cross, N. (2011) Design Thinking: Understanding How Designers Think and Work. New York: Berg.
This book offers new insights and understanding of design thinking, based on evidence from observation and investigation of design practice. Design Thinking is the distillation of the work of one of Design's most influential thinkers. 

3. Ambrose, G. (2nd edn. 2015) Design Thinking for Visual Communication. London: Bloomsbury.
Design Thinking for Visual Communication identifies methods and thought processes used by designers in order to start the process that eventually leads to a finished piece work. Step-by-step guidance for each part of the process is highlighted by real-life case studies, enabling the student to see teaching in practice. This focus on ideas and methods eschews an abstract, academic approach in favour of a useable approach to design a as a problem-solving activity. This editions uses contributions from a broader international range of design practices and adds depth to existing case studies by looking in greater detail at some of the processes used.

4. Jevons, W. S. (1864). Pure Logic or the Logic of Quality Apart from Quantity. London: E Stanford.
"It is the purpose of this work to show that Logic assumes a new degree of simplicity, precision, generality, and power, when comparison in quality is treated apart from any reference to quantity."

5. Male, A. (2007) Illustration: A Theoretical and Contextual Perspective. Switzerland: AVA Publishing.
"Contemporary generations are also greatly influenced by illustration and because of the medium of print, moving images and more recently the digital revolution, accessibility is everywhere."

6. Dawber, M. (2009). Big Book of Contemporary Illustration.
This is an essential sourcebook for any creative professional or student and all those who appreciate the art of illustration. It covers the broadest range of illustration today from digital drawing, pixelated pictures, Photoshop fantasies to the traditional techniques of sketching and painting from over 160 international artists. With close to 1,000 illustrations, the categories cover range from the technical, architectural through nature, people to fantasy, fashion and pop culture.



Google Scholar

1. Dorst, K. (2011) Design Studies, the Core of Design Thinking and its Application
In the last few years, “Design Thinking” has gained popularity – it is now seen as an exciting new paradigm for dealing with problems in sectors as far a field as IT, Business, Education and Medicine. This potential success challenges the design research community to provide unambiguous answers to two key questions: “What is the core of Design Thinking?” and “What could it bring to practitioners and organisations in other fields?”. We sketch a partial answer by considering the fundamental reasoning pattern behind design, and then looking at the core design practices of framing and frame creation. The paper ends with an exploration of the way in which these core design practices can be adopted for organisational problem solving and innovation.

2. Simonton, D. K. (2000) Creativity: Cognitive, Personal, Developmental and Social Aspects.
Research has taken place on 4 fronts: the cognitive processes involved in the creative act, the distinctive characteristics of the creative person, the development and manifestation of creativity across the individual's life span, and the social environments most strongly associated with creative activity. Although some important questions remain unanswered, psychologists now know more than ever before about how individuals achieve this special and significant form of optimal human functioning.

3. Brown, T. (2009). Change by Design. New York: HarperBusiness.
Tim Brown's understated, exciting take on innovation draws its inspiration from design: he calls the process "design thinking." Brown in a CEO and president of IDEO, an influential US design and innovation firm. This book conveys that innovation is the norm at IDEO. 

4. Ranciere, J. (2013) The Politics of Aesthetics.
The Politics of Aesthetics rethinks the relationship between art and politics, reclaiming "aesthetics" from the narrow confines it is often reduced to. Jacques Ranciere reveals its intrinsic link to politics by analysing what they both have in common: the delimitation of of the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, the thinkable and the unthinkable, the possible and the impossible.

5. Deutsche, R. (1996). Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics.
Collection of Essays that explore connections among contemporary art space and political struggles.




Websites

1. https://www.creativereview.co.uk/where-is-the-content-where-is-the-comment/
The original article from where Zeegen's quote was selected; reading the article in it's entirety will provide context and enable me to better understand the point Zeegen is trying to make, as well as the work he was originally criticising as a result.

2. http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/opinion-lawrence-zeegen-pick-me-up

3. http://theartedge.faso.com/blog/63519/a-few-thoughts-on-quantity-vs-quality-within-the-context-of-art-making
4. http://www.illustratorsillustrated.com/evaluating-illustration-aesthetically/
5. https://joshmurr.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/what-is-the-state-of-illustration-today-as-compared-to-other-practices-and-what-does-this-spell-for-its-future/
6. Isn't it time the world of illustration had a bit of a kick up the arse?
7. http://www.creativebloq.com/illustration/kick-arse-11513958


JStor

1. Razzouk, R. and Shute, V. (2012). What is Design Thinking and Why is it Important?
2. Kazmierczak, E. T. (2003). Design as Meaning Making: From Making Things to the Design of Thinking. The MIT Press.

3. Yanow, D. (2010). Form Follows Function?
4. Sudjic, D. (2006) Form and Function. Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. 
5. Oakley, T. (1919). Illustration. The American Magazine of Art. The Frick Collection.
6. Fisher, J. (2016). Designing out Way to a Better World. University of Minnesota Press.
7. Goldschmidt, G. (2014). Linkography: Unfolding the Design Process. The MIT Press.
8. Antonelli, P. and Martin, R. (2013). Rotman on Design: The Best on Design Thinking from Rotman Magazine. University of Toronto Press.
9. Whitbeck, C. (1996). Ethics as Design: Doing Justice to Moral Problems. The Hastings Centre.


Reflection

While I found it easier to access websites and the library for research sources, rather than Google scholar and Jstor that I had never used before, I still found it rather difficult to filter through all of the information to ensure it was relevant to my original quote and can be related back to it somehow. Google brought up far too many results, a lot of which were not what I was looking for, so completing this sheet was a lengthy process and took over a week to complete! I'm happy that I have accomplished more than 3 results for each research type as, at first, I didn't think I would be able to manage it! I'm hoping that having quite a longer list of sources will help support me better when it comes to writing my 1,000 word essays.

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