Writing and Research for Graphic Designers

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Writing & research for graphic designers

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4

acaDemic

Scholarly writing has gotten something of a bum rap, particularly as

it applies to design writing. For decades, architecture monographs

were written more as brain drains than as prose poems—they tend

to be streams of historical, critical, and anecdotal consciousness.

When designers began to write in a scholarly and critical manner,

this model was often followed. The discipline has improved greatly

since the early days when design writing was either overly “trade”

or oppressively “academic” (think jargon, footnotes, and lots of

substantiating quotations).

When I started writing in the late seventies, I adopted a se-

riously serious tone influenced by the anthropology papers my

then-wife wrote when she was a doctoral candidate. She would

edit my texts and insert words that were not mine (like mode

and paradigm) but sounded viable—and intelligent—so I

retained them. In fact, I would insert them when I wanted to

make some design trope or mannerism appear a significant

“mode” of expression. I will admit it gave me a certain level of

credibility, although people who read my work often said,

“We expected you were much, much older.” The caricaturist,

Ed Sorel, himself an entertaining and fluid author, chided me

for “writing like Charles Dickens.” In other words, I found it

difficult to be loose. And that is because I enjoyed reading

back my texts and thinking “this guy is so smart.” This fal-

lacy ended when my wife and I divorced—I got the apart-

ment and the car; she took the cat and the scholarly words

and phrases.

Still, academic writing demands certain rigors that are not

routine in more journalistic prose. Presumably, an academic

work is a more thorough report, analysis, and telling of the

subject. Footnotes or internal reference notes are compulsory

to not only show where the scholar’s ideas derived, but also

guide readers to additional information or even contradictory

positions. But even more than footnotes, scholarship demands

that every stone is unturned to become expert in your field,

and that must be apparent through how the text is structured

to answer even the unasked questions.

In the following case study, by Kerry William Purcell, the

author of professional biographical monographs on the art

director Alexey Brodovitch and Swiss design pioneer Josef

Müller-Brockmann, very important and all-but-forgotten

English design magazines are historically recalled. Although

Purcell does not use footnotes, the authority of his voice is

bolstered by relevant dates and outside quotations. His decided

mastery of historical fact contributes to the credibility.

This essay, which has been excerpted, serves as a resource

for others interested in this specific subject, or like me, in

the overall history of design magazines.

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section 2

surveying the diciplines

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CASE STUDY:

excerpts from

alphaBet anD image

KErry WILLIAM purCELL

Kerry William Purcell is a lecturer in design history at The University of Hertfordshire. Originally published in Baseline #50, 2006

British graphic design was a profession in search of an identity in

1945. As with most occupations, war had marked an unyielding

pause in the workaday routines of the industry.

During this period the obligations and urgency of conflict

had called for the production of posters, pamphlets and

publications that, by necessity, demanded a simple graphic

immediacy. Whether through the use of typography in mass

propaganda, or photography in the Royal Society for the Pre-

vention of Accident (RoSPA) posters, a softened modernism

had proved its worth for a newly emerging group of young

designers. It would be a mistake, however, to imply that the

design landscape ensuing from this period was changed radi-

cally after 1945. On returning to their duties, many printers

and designers were quick to realise that while many other

industries had exploited the new practices and technologies

brought about by wartime innovation, the post-war design

world was still dominated by an earlier generation of conser-

vative typographers and craftsmen. Changing from military

attire to civilian suit, the young typographer or designer was

also required to don a willful ignorance toward the extensive

possibilities peacetime afforded.

One figure who attempted to bridge the gap between the

earlier artist-craftsman of the twenties and thirties and the

new post-war graphic designer was Robert Harling. Born in

1910 in Highbury, London, Harling was educated in Brigh-

ton and London, before attending the Central School of Arts

and Crafts. Soon after completion of his studies he quickly es-

tablished himself as a significant figure in the British design

scene. Alongside design work at the Daily Mail, he occupied

key advisory roles

at London Transport

and the celebrated

Sheffield-based

foundry Stephenson

Blake & Co., where

he also supplied

the new typefaces

Playbill (1938),

Chisell (1939) and

Tea Chest (1939).

Harling’s abilities

as a designer were

more than equaled

by his talents as a writer. In 1936 he became one of the earliest

critics to familiarize the English design world with the work

of Jan Tschichold in his essay ‘What is this “Functional” typogra-

phy? The work of Jan Tschichold in Printing’ (even if he did

later charge Tschichold’s early work as ‘really too refrigerated

and mathematical to be true’). It was in this same year that

Harling brought his combined experience of designer-writer

to bear on the founding of Typography. The origins of this in-

fluential quarterly magazine (originally published in an edition

of 1,200) came through Harling’s association with the printer

James Shand (and to a lesser degree, Eric Howe). Together with

Shand, Harling set out to create a publication that encom-

pArT foUr : ACADemiC

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