Not an academic type: what do communication designers know about research?

Abstract

Communication designers, like all designers, operate in the generative yet problematic territory that exists between science and art. Their work is technical and instrumental, yet simultaneously imaginative, intuitive and creative. This is an activity of becoming through the poetics of the material. The relationship between the communication designer and client creates an intersubjective space in which new knowledge is both enabled through and accessed in materialised propositional artefacts. This knowledge is both experiential and tacit, formed in the interstices between designer and the other. How can the activity of communication design, and the knowledge it produces, find a place in academic research? How might research be undertaken, not only about design but also through design? Some aspects of design can be adequately analysed, described and optimised using the methods of scientific research. This paper argues however, that the aims of this particular research project—to better understand the intersubjective aspects of practice—suit 'practice-led' research; a method based on the practice of design rather than a scientific research method applied to design. This paper discusses a particular communication design case-study, and the observations and understandings it produced, in order to demonstrate how the practice of communication design can adequately and usefully be incorporated into academic research discourse; upholding the standards of academic rigour yet ensuring the rich complexity of design is not abandoned along the way. Communication design's entry into the academic world is recent, especially at a research level. What can the academy offer communication design and what can communication design offer the academy? Introduction This paper discusses a case study in communication design practice; firstly in order to provide an example of 'practice-led' research and demonstrate its ability to contribute to academic research, and secondly to examine the understandings generated through the case study. The aim of this research project was to investigate the intersubjective aspects of communication design practice. The case study discussed was a common day-to-day communication design project; a visual identity design for a client wishing to start a new practice in psychoanalysis. Each stage of the project was documented and reflected upon. As the project neared completion I conducted a semi-structured interview with my client in order to gain insights in my client's experience of working on the project. In this paper I describe a number of observations I made during the project — the sensitivity of the designer/client relationship; the difficult partial communication; and the anxiety present in the initial stages of the relationship. Many of theses observations are also referred to by Donald