Second draft

Title

‘An investigation into drawing as a tool in the graphic design process’

Abstract

‘Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that have influenced us. To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty.’ (Oscar Wilde, 1891)

Human vision and perception lead us to think what we see. Our imagination helps to understand a meaning of given experience or knowledge that makes sense and plays a key role in our learning process.

Introduction

This report is about, how do graphic designers and students in the 21^st century use drawing in their process. Also this project would focus on designers who have put drawing at the centre of their practice and explore what that means for their work. This report will become useful for primarilly new generation of students and will inform how benefitial understanding of drawing is.

While drawing is a symbolic thinking tool, some of design professionals and students avoid or do not like this fundamental skill of thinking process. The reason being to this is that drawing is regarded as a crucial step in the learning process. Mostly, people use skills they are confident with and design towards their strengths. But why do people avoid advances of thinking tools? Creative thinking is very important. Everyone knows that. Its advances could help them to new products, new ways of marketing, new services, etc. Why? Creative thinking is a skill that everyone could learn. Even though it is quite difficult. There are very interesting process studies of well-known designers and artists who embody of theirs visions to their own or new practices. It is very essential to follow it and explore it further. Learn from it. By practicing an appropriate creative skill, especially students could learn to motivate themselves to the better understanding of this visual language. 

Relevance

The aim of this project is to remit to the thinking tool – drawing in education. This report will look into detail about the characterization of drawings – why and how people draw; what abilities students should develop and what purpose they should be able identify drawing for? Also it aims to look at methods of research and characterization - how people research; what tools should be used; what is the best way to do it? 

Plan

To begin with, this report will explain the definition of drawing. As Hazel Harrison says ‘drawing is a process or learning how to see well’. It is a necessity to mention the biological principles of vision briefly, how human eye focus on an image or an object. 

After that, the project will focus more on selected designers and artists who use drawing at their practice. Understanding the explored meanings of expression in their work will be an inspiration for the following steps of this project. The designers and artists are: Paul Klee, Lucienne Day, David Hockney and Claude Heath.

The next step of this report will identify the designers’ and artists’ work. Before undertaking any experiments with professionals and students I will confront and evaluate my research and reconsider the best application of this practice. From there, I will move onto the experiment I am aiming to do with students and professionals. First I let them identify 3 drawings. Secondly they will identify 3 objects. Thirdly they will have to think about a random object or an idea that inspire them from those two exercises. They could draw only to express themselves. At the end, they will have to complete a survey designed for this tasks.  While they work I will observe, record and document how these people see, how they move from first idea to another. The purpose of this experimentation is to find out how people use their drawing skills. It also will be very interesting to see their reactions while they work on the tasks. I will design a short questionnaire to find out their impressions and feelings from the task given. Both drawings and objects will be selected regarding to my founding. 

To this point I will try to answer the following questions:

How designers/students sketch and document ideas?

Are they more familiar with paper based or digital thinking?

What is the best way to see?

How do they approach design problems? 

Chapter headings

Chapter headings might be changed according to better understanding of the topic. I must get a lot more information from books and different resources.

Introduction

An overview of the report’s aim

Definition of drawing

A brief explanation of drawing and its usage

How do we see?

An introduction to biological principles of vision

Methods, Research and Characterization

Identifying types of methods, research

Creative thinking?

Application of useful methods inspired by designers and artists

Strategy for experiment and Analysis

The plan of my experiment and its result

How drawing is useful for designers?

Reconsidering creative thinking usage

Conclusion

A summary and reflection of my report

Action Plan

In order to the report, gather a lot more information from different resources during summer holiday.

Decide on who and how you want to interview.

Choose appropriate drawings and objects for the exercise.

Make a plan and time schedule for the experiment.

Design a relevant questionnaire.

Discuss your ideas with others.

Get a feedback.

Decide on effective strategy.

 

Bibliography

Books:

Merleau – Ponty (2002) The world of Perception

Bruno Munari (2000) Design as Art

Kimberly Elam (1980) Geometry of design

Paul Klee (1961) The thinking eye; Volume 1.

KMartin Kemp (2006) Leonardo Da Vinci – Experience, experiment and design

Bo Bergstrom (2008) Essentials of Visual Communication

Dolf Rieser (1972) Art and Science

Mark Wigan (2006) Thinking Visually

Robin Landa (1998) Thinking creatively

Paul Laseau (2000) Graphic Thinking for Architects & Designers

Charles Darwent; Kate MacFarlane; Katharine Stout and Tania Kovats (2007) The Drawing Book

 

Electronic resources:

http://visualthinkingart.blogspot.com/ (accessed 12.07.2009)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_language#Gestalt_psychology (accessed 12.07.2009)

http://www.drawing.org.uk/ (accessed 12.07.2009)

http://www.fluidhive.com/ (accessed 12.07.2009)

http://blog.fluidhive.com/ (accessed 12.07.2009)

http://www.accessexcellence.org/AE/AEC/CC/vision_background.php (accessed 12.07.2009)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception (accessed 12.07.2009)

http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil%20of%20art/wildetext.htm (accessed 12.07.2009)

http://idratherbewriting.com/2009/05/19/drawing-as-a-tool-for-thinking/ (accessed on 13.07.2009)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2002/oct/01/schools.artsfeatures (accessed on 13.07.2009)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/sep/30/artsinschools.schools (accessed on 13.07.2009)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2009/may/11/contemporary-art-drawing
(accessed on 13.07.2009)

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Graphic_Design/Drawing (accessed on 13.07.2009)

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20030420/ai_n12582469/ (accessed on 13.07.2009)

http://depts.washington.edu/dmachine/PAPER/DTRS99-I/intention.html (accessed on 14.07.2009) http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/VisThinkTools/start.htm (accessed on 14.07.2009)

http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/aad/research/ccdp.htm (accessed on 14.07.2009)

 

Reports:

P. Schenk (2005) Developing a taxonomy on drawing for design; School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

 

C. Stones, T. Cassidy (2007) Comparing synthesis strategies of novice graphic designers using digital and traditional design tools; Design Studies Vol 28 No. 1 January (2007)

 

M. Resnick, B. Myers, K. Nakakoji, B. Shneiderman, R. Pausch, T. Selker, M. Eisenberg (2005) Design Principles for Tools to Support Creative Thinking; October 30, 2005