Week 3: Fields of Practise

Tramaine Berry
Oct 11, 2020
6 min read

Updated: Sep 21, 2023

LECTURES //

How globalisation has affected design practice overtime

"The danger of dealing, of working online, through sending PDF via email and stuff, is that potentially very small problems can turn into what seems like a huge problem", Intro.

I can imagine how something like that could occur, which is why it’s very important to go over the small details that you wouldn’t usually go through when you are face-to-face. During one of my remote internships, a lot of things were miss-communicated because I would interpret ideas or comments differently from my client. One way I would clear this up would be a quick skype call because this allows me to screen share and talk through all my questions. Another way would be to use a quicker alternative to an email such as Trello for example because this would allow you and the client to stay organised, communicate faster, and maybe use it as a visual ideas wall.

Sam Winston touches on the idea that people respond better to the physical than the digital. I love the touch and small of a beautifully printed book, however, the prospect of going abroad for a meeting makes me feel that it could have been faster with a Skype call, and if you are just starting out your business, it’s going to seem expensive.

"You don’t have to be there, there’s different ways of working", Regular Practice.

Regular Practice agrees that Skype is a slick process and reduces the amount of backwards and forwards – I can imagine they mean compared with communication via email because it’s easy to misinterpret non-verbal communication.

"I think it’s encouraging greater collaboration; it’s encouraging bigger ideas and then it’s allowing us to work on a much bigger canvas", Simon Manchipp.

I agree with Manchipp because not only is it providing us with a range of printing practices around the world, it’s also showing us how someone from a different background would approach the same problem, which is why I am grateful for being on an international online course.

Sarah Boris creates opportunities for herself by visiting international graphic events and exhibiting her work, which brings new business for her. Meanwhile, Julian House and Adrian Talbot seem to think staying where they are in London makes them more accessible to their clients. I think being in a capital city is a good place for clients to find you, however, I think it is also important to find clients – there needs to be a balance. I also think there is a large miscommunication on what globalisation is because some studios see it as ‘’hiding behind a screen’, whilst others see it as having the opportunity to open their business up to international clients or investing in international printing studios for business.

DISCUSSION //

"I think it is about getting the balance right. To not embrace globalisation at all would be to miss out on a lot of potential collaboration and inspiration. But the human element can't be lost. The practitioners who spoke about using globalisation and flying to places, not just hiding behind a screen, I believe have struck this balance well!", Hannah Zemmel.

Harriet Ferguson of Pearlfisher reflects on Graphic Design practice globally and broadly

Harriet Fergusion is a senior designer at Pearlfisher’s London Studio. Pearlfisher is based in London, New York, San Francisco and Copenhagen, creating a great grasp of design in some key hotspots for the practice around the world, and creates an opportunity to reach out to clients from further afield.

Globalisation creates an opportunity for conceptual diversity within the workplace as well as being able to outsource skilled people for a culture specific project however, there can sometimes be language and time barriers when communicating.

The barrier in this practice however is designing for a global audience because symbols and words can mean different things to people from other regions. The future of global brands is to stay authentic to the brand and try not to visually mimic each country they are targeting, and this will transform the brand into its own cultural reference. But wouldn’t colour still be a problem? Unless the brand makes it clear of its origins, then would this cancel out the need to be culturally sensitive to other audiences?

McDonald’s joined the trend of going global in the 70’s and 80’s by bringing ‘the American way of life’ to several countries, however, this company has adapted to local tastes and preferences whilst continuing the core idealism of ‘fast and convenient’. My take on this is to show the origins of the brand visually and stay true to core values but also adapt the contents to local demands.

Drawn Here & There by Non-Format

Non-Format explains that being based in USA and Norway are beneficial to their business because they worked together in the same location beforehand, equipping them with knowledge on what can be accomplished by each party. Clients communicate with a separate telephone number for each base. When both bases aren’t working late, there is a gap where they are not working. They even stated that a base in Japan would make their business a 24-hour company. This makes me wonder whether not having another base near Japan would be a barrier for clients because they would need to work out which base is available to them; however, their shared email account would make sure that both bases had access to a client’s message. Although clients wouldn’t have the luxury of communicating at a faster pace.

WORKSHOP CHALLENGE //

D & AD award winners 2020

The D & AD award winners 2020 holds over thirty categories. I have found that categories I would associate with Graphic Design such as branding, book, experiential, typography, magazine and integrated are separated into their own category, which reminds me of how graphic designers are not seen as specialists but as multi-disciplined designers: a typography specialist would be called a type designer rather than a graphic designer.

I was surprised to find data visualization in the graphic design category because it is mainly filled with traditional methods such as binding, posters, writing, websites and apps, stationary, signage, brochures, applied graphics, moving image and catalogues; data visualization seems to introduce non-traditional methods.

Looking at this category, I was originally expecting to see flat imagery displayed on applied arts, however, projects like ‘printed by Parkinson's’ are associated with art, whilst ‘most dangerous street’ is an interactive space.

I was interested to see ‘impact’ and ‘future impact’ because I thought they were the same thing. Impact focuses more on social problems of today, whilst future impact is mainly focused on environmental problems; although, I feel that both categories will emerge soon as the effects of climate change are starting to become a current problem. I also thought ‘digital’ and ‘digital design’ were the same thing, but from looking at all the projects from both categories I think ‘digital design’ is the interaction of products and ‘digital’ involves digital platforms such as social media and advertising.

I had never heard of the term ‘design transformation’, which investigates human behavior and finds ways to make convenient changes for the consumer. I think some projects look at corporate convenience, whilst other projects like ‘see sound’ or ‘avatar robot café' clash with the ‘impact’ category.

Another thing I have noticed is that most projects have more than one category, which shows how all the disciplines are starting to mix, making it difficult for designers to categorize their practice. I think it also shows that it is getting more difficult for D & AD to judge projects, which is why there are so many categories to choose from.

Breaking the boundaries of Graphic Design

Branding and Identity
Typography
Packaging Design
Editorial Design
Product Design
Exhibition Design
Web / Digital Platform Design
Illustration
Motion Graphics
Impact Design

The Tampon book was a campaign against tax discrimination. The Female company sold their tampons in the form of a book to reduce the original tampon tax of 19% to the book tax of 7%. The D & AD categorised this project under ‘use of direct / public affairs campaign/ direct product and service/ in-market campaign/ low budget campaign/ impact’.

I think this breaks several boundaries in terms of what is classed as a book and what the function of a book is. In fact, I am surprised D & AD didn’t categorise this as editorial considering that it is classed as a ‘book’. If I were to name a separate category for this project, it would be ‘consuming for change’, which are products designed for social change campaigns, allowing consumers to participate with each purchase. This fits in with today’s consumerist society as well as the rising demand for social change, in fact, several product-based brands have already started supporting social causes such as innocent’s knitted caps and dairy milk’s generous bar.

EDITORIAL PIECE //

FEEDBACK //

I think it was very effective how you have used the yellow lines to break up the boundaries of the page. Maybe you could have utilised the same idea with your paragraphs as well?
The editorial layout is nice with the yellow strapline across the top.
Very clean, the break in the title works well – could it use more imagery?
As a thumbnail I thought that the editorial piece was a little flat but seeing it larger on screen made a huge difference and I think that they layout is nicely thought through and the sparseness works. I would personally include more images but appreciate the aesthetic and clean design you have utilised. The yellow split on the page reminds me of police tape they used to close down playgrounds this year in response to the pandemic and I would almost make it even brighter / more striking.