Diagram from page 132 of Gray, C, & Malins, J. (2007) Visualizing Research: A Guide to the Research Process in Art and Design, Taylor & Francis Group, Abingdon, Oxon. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [14 November 2023].
Interpreting the map: methods of evaluation and analysis
Visualizing Research: A Guide to the Research Process in Art and Design
“Analysis is not about adhering to any one correct approach or set of right techniques; it is imaginative, artful, flexible and reflexive. It should also be methodical, scholarly, and intellectually rigorous. (Coffey and Atkinson, 1996, p. 10)”
Validity and reliability: towards research quality
“validity and reliability. These concepts (and others, as we shall see later) are concerned with establishing research quality”
“In scientific methodologies, objectivity, validity, reliability and replicatability are the cornerstones of research quality”
“Spectacles and sieves: criteria”
More related to looking at the outcomes themselves:
“• to ‘evaluate’ is to ascertain the value of something and to judge or assess its worth; • to ‘analyse’ is to examine something in detail in order to discover its meaning.”
“However, nothing can be evaluated or analysed without criteria”
“For example, what makes ‘good’ design could be articulated in relation to three key criteria: effectiveness, efficiency, economy. These, in turn, could be ‘unpacked’ to provide more focused criteria, for example effectiveness in relation to context and aesthetics; efficiency in terms of function and use; economy in terms of cost and use of materials.”
“It is essential that the criteria you develop relate to the aim and objectives of the research.”
“Criteria are like spectacles and sieves”
“they are the means by which we focus, capture and distil value and meaning. Different spectacle lenses allow us to see in various ways – to see some things whilst not being distracted by others”
“Different meshes in sieves allow us to capture some things while discarding others, for example in panning for gold. Conversely, paper coffee filters capture the unpalatable grounds leaving us with the essential distilled liquid.”
“These different lenses, meshes, filters are metaphors for the sets of criteria by which we evaluate, analyse and make sense of research outcomes”
I used content analysis to look at the images of cultural identity that the students provided in order to “search for pattern and meaning” (Collier, 2004)
Van Leeuwen, T., Jewitt, C. & Collier, M. (Eds). ‘Approaches to Analysis in Visual Anthropology’. The Handbook of Visual Analysis. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4135/9780857020062.n3 (Accessed 2 January 2025).
Steps in Thematic analysis
– Familiarisation (note initial impressions) – Coding: Assign descriptive codes (significant or recurring, relating to potential themes – Theme generation: Group similar codes together to identify broader themes – Theme refinement: Review and refine themes, consider relationships between themes – Interpretation: Analyse the identified themes in the context of the research question, considering the social, cultural and historic background of the images
Gray, C, & Malins, J (2007). Visualizing Research: A Guide to the Research Process in Art and Design. Taylor & Francis Group, Abingdon, Oxon. Available at: ProQuest Ebook Central. (Accessed: 14 November 2023).
Now that I have gathered data relating to my intervention I will look into methods of data analysis.
I read Chapter six: Analysing Data, from Kara, H. (2025) Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide to gain an overview on the types of approaches to data analysis.
Up to this point my understanding of data analysis is that it falls into two categories (quantitative and qualitative) and I knew very little beyond these general terms.
The text helped open up my understanding to the kinds of approaches available, how they might suit different kinds of data and provided some examples that gave context to the methods.
My understanding is that I’ll be using the project outcomes as data: the typefaces that students have designed in response to the brief – to explore type design in relation to an aspect of their own identity. Presumably I will be using qualitative methods to do this. I also plan to collect data at the end of the intervention, in the form of interviews, questionnaires, and/or conversations between the students where they have the opportunity to reflect on what they have learned, explored, how their understanding of the canon, decolonisation, diversity in relation to typeface design has changed as a result of the intervention. With the latter, there is potential for quantitative analysis too, in terms of how many students mention particular themes, subjects, etc.
The article gives an example:
“Suppose that you hold a focus group with eight first-generation immigrants from different countries of origin. You begin by having each person share some basic demographic data by way of introduction: where they have lived, how old they are, their occupation(s) before and after immigration, who and where their family members are. Then you facilitate a discussion of their experiences of emigration and immigration around themes drawn from the academic literature, including wealth and poverty, coercion and freedom, belonging, emotion, status, togetherness and separation. The resulting data would be amenable to quantitative and qualitative analysis”
This is very similar to what I might do with the discussions / conversations at the end of the intervention. With the themes drawn from the academic literature being: decolonisation, the western canon, diversity, etc. The article suggests that “The resulting data would be amenable to quantitative and qualitative analysis”, something I hadn’t fully considered.
The article talks about how conversations can also be analysed in other ways: “consider any silences, pauses or omissions in order to try to uncover what might have been left unsaid and why (Frost and Elichaoff 2010: 56, in Kara, 2015: 99). I’m not sure if this will apply to my data but really interesting to read about these alternative methods of analysis.
The article also refers to “more creative approaches to data analysis” but also the importance of “understanding where rules must be applied” (Kara, H 2015: 100). Firstly I’d like to learn more about possible creative approaches but this is perhaps also referring to how data analysis needs to be rigorous and guided by rules.
In terms of ethics the piece talks about the responsibility of the data analyst and that “It is essential that you do not invent or distort your data, or misuse statistical techniques” (Poon and Ainuddin 2011: 307, in Kara, 2015: 100).
I intend to record conversations and discussions with students and there is some useful information here about ‘data preparation and coding’, specifically about “large variety of decisions to be made about transcription” (Kara 2015: 100). Again, there is reference to “should you record non-speech sounds that people make”, something I had not previously considered.
So there is potential that I will use both qualitative and quantitative data analysis methods.
“Quantitative and qualitative data need to be analysed separately, using different techniques, and in research where both quantitative and qualitative data have been gathered, the datasets will be analysed separately before the analyses are integrated to produce the research findings.” (Kara 2015: 101)
The article later lists several kinds of qualitative data analysis, a few that I found most relevant to my research are
content analysis – a semi-quantitative technique for counting the number of instances of each category or code (Robson 2011: 349) • thematic analysis – identifying themes from coded data (Robson 2011: 475)
conversation analysis – detailed analysis of the verbal and non-verbal content of everyday interactions (Bryman 2012: 527)
phenomenological analysis – analysing participants’ stories from, and descriptions of, their ‘life-worlds’, or individual experiences and perceptions, with a focus on meaning (Papathomas and Lavallee 2010: 357; Mayoh, Bond and Todres 2012: 28)
The last method in particular as potentially being connected to my project about identity and typeface design, how the projects are, in a way a kind of story about individual experiences, cultural backgrounds, etc.
A key part of the text was around Discourse Analysis (DA), “based on the concept that the way we talk about something affects the way we think about that phenomenon.” (Kara 2015: 105). Particularly as the author talks about how DA can be applied to other kinds of data, such as images.
Other potentially useful bits of information from this text were:
– idea of recording participants and how this might affect what they say, if they know they are being recorded. Some researchers looked at recording conversations in more natural settings, for longer periods (Gordon 2013: 314)
– Use of diagrams and maps to “help you visualise your data and the ideas and relationships that develop as you work through the analytic process (Kara 2015: 107). The example given here of researchers Charles Buckley and Michael Waring, “they found that creating diagrams helped them to generate, explore, record and communicate insights about their data” (Kara, 2015: 107) and “using diagrams in data analysis can help to uncover some otherwise hidden parts of the research process ((Buckley and Waring 2013: 150 in Kara 2015: 107).
– Also key to my data analysis is an example given on p.109 of researchers in Australia who used Mixed-method analysis and “developed an analytical procedure using three different methods to analyse children’s artworks” (Kara, 2015: 109). They used quantitative techniques (Content analysis, where they categorised visual elements in the drawings and counted number and frequency, and also used two qualitative methods: Interpretive analysis (looking at mood or atmosphere in the drawings), and developmental analysis (looking at correlating development with age). “The researchers conclude that this combination of analytic methods can ‘provide deep insights into young children’s understandings’ (Sorin, Brooks and Haring 2012: 29, in Kara, 2015: 109).
Another interesting example given is how researchers in the US looked at “how video could be used to represent young people’s identity” (Kara, 2015: 109), a very similar topic to my intervention. “They describe video data as ‘multimodal’ because it contains still and moving images, colour, a range of sounds and silences, sometimes text and so on” (Kara, 2015: 109).
“Halverson et al originally approached video analysis by starting with dialogue, but then they encountered a film that had no dialogue, which engendered their decision to develop a multimodal approach. Their aim was to create a multimodal analytic framework, not to analyse data in different chunks, but to reflect how the interaction of different chunks of data can create new meanings. Following the work of Baldry and Thibault (2006), they divided the film into ‘phases and transitions’, which were units of analysis that had some kind of internal consistency, for example through a type of shot, a consistent voiceover or the same music. Then they devised a coding scheme, based on the work of Bordwell and Thompson (2004), for each unit of analysis. This involved four broad categories based on filmmakers’ key cinematic techniques:
1 mise-en-scène: anything visible within the camera’s frame, such as setting and characters 2 sound: anything audible, such as dialogue and music 3 editing: the filmmaker’s interventions that create the film 4 cinematography: the filmmaker’s techniques for altering the image from that seen through the camera’s lens.
Within each category, more detailed codes were developed, such as facial expressions, clothing, sound effects, flashback, freeze frame, lighting and close-up.
Halverson et al say that using this system ‘to describe the phases and transitions of the films resulted in the creation of multilayered filmic transcripts that allow us to consider each mode individually, as well as how they connect to one another to help youth consider issues of identity in their films’ (Halverson et al 2012: 8).”
Lots to consider here, moving forward with my data analysis.
References
Kara, H (2015) Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences : A Practical Guide, Policy Press, Bristol. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [14 November 2023].
During my intervention I had several conversations with GCD Course Leader, Kira Salter, who was able to offer me some great advice on Action Research and kindly shared her previous ARPs with me to read.
Some notes below:
I had several conversations with BAGCD Course Leader Kira Salter who really helped me make sense of what I was doing and how to move forward with practical steps.
Kira provided me with her own ARPs and MA Teaching and Learning projects and these have been hugely helpful in gaining insight into the steps and structure of an ARP.
Kira’s ARP on Inclusive Curricula provides some interesting insights:
“provide an inclusive curriculum that anticipates the needs of all students regardless of their ethnicity, gender, their social background” (Salter, 2020:3)
“By adopting student centered learning strategies that instil a culture of inclusivity, that not only recognises but also utilises diversity, we can provide a learning environment that delivers equality in both the access to learning and one that encourages, and nurtures, students contributions.” (Salter, 2020:3)
This quote in particular really chimed with my intervention ideas, that the diversity of the student cohort provides an amazing opportunity to “utilise diversity” that “encourages, and nurtures, students contributions.” In this way the subject of typography can be made more diverse through the students research and ideas.
These ideas fed into my planning to use Padlet as a way to document the student’s work on the intervention but also so that it could be a communal learning resource for them during the sessions and beyond.
Information about Kira’s ‘Community Resources List’ initiative
“transform a closed discourse into open conversation in pursuit of a better representation of diverse historical, geographical and cultural contexts, as well as underrepresented and marginalised voices.” (Salter, 2020:1)
Salter, K. (2020) How can participatory approaches impact, re-imagine and decolonise the curriculum? MA Academic Practice in Art, Design and Communication. University of the Arts London
Salter, K. (2020) Action Research Project. PgCert in Academic Practice. University of the Arts London
In preparation for writing a questionnaire to gather feedback on my ARP intervention, I read two articles:
Writing Survey Questions Pew Research Center https://www.pewresearch.org/writing-survey-questions/
and
The Tools at Hand Jean M. Converse & Stanley Presser https://methods-sagepub-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/book/survey-questions/n3.xml
In Writing Survey Questions, the author presents various aspects of questionnaire writing and how these aspects should not only be considered but also how question order, context, types of answers can affect the answers and data from these surveys.
Creating questions
Questions should be used to accurately measure the opinions, experiences and behaviours of the group. Questions shouldn’t be ambiguous or biased. Essentially that there is a science that underpins good survey questionnaires.
The author talks about using the same questions at different points in the process, to measure change over time. Something I hadn’t thought about and perhaps too late to add to my process now but I could ask questions that require the respondent to look at how their work and ideas have changed over the course of the intervention.
“Asking the same questions at different points in time allows us to report on changes in the overall views of the general public (or a subset of the public, such as registered voters, men or Black Americans), or what we call “trending the data”.” (Pew Research Center, 2021)
“When measuring change over time, it is important to use the same question wording and to be sensitive to where the question is asked in the questionnaire to maintain a similar context as when the question was asked previously” (Pew Research Center, 2021)
The use of open- and closed-ended questions is a key component of questionnaires and “One of the most significant decisions that can affect how people answer questions” (Pew Research Center, 2021). Open-ended questions are where the respondents provide a response in their own words, whereas closed-ended questions are where respondents are asked to choose from a list of answer choices. As with questions, the order of answers can influence how people respond to them, “Answers to questions are sometimes affected by questions that precede them.” (Pew Research Center, 2021)
Question wording
Part of the design of the questions, “The choice of words and phrases in a question is critical in expressing the meaning and intent” (Pew Research Center, 2021). Questions should be clear and specific, and written in such a way that each respondent is able to answer, using simple and concrete language and avoiding unfamiliar abbreviations or jargon.
One aspect that might be important to my particular survey is something called ‘Social desirability bias’ which is about how people want to be accepted and liked, and may provide inaccurate answers to questions that deal with sensitive subjects and may understate / overstate answers to fit in. As my project is about identity, which can be a sensitive subject for some people, I should be mindful of this.
Question order
Once the questions have been designed, I will need to develop an order for the questions.
“Surveyors must be attentive to how questions early in a questionnaire may have unintended effects on how respondents answer subsequent questions. Researchers have demonstrated that the order in which questions are asked can influence how people respond; earlier questions can unintentionally provide context for the questions that follow (these effects are called “order effects”).” (Pew Research Center, 2021).
Respondents are much more likely to mention concepts or considerations mentioned in earlier closed-ended questions, so again, this is something to be mindful of.
“A questionnaire, like a conversation, should be grouped by topic and unfold in a logical order. It is often helpful to begin the survey with simple questions that respondents will find interesting and engaging” (Pew Research Center, 2021).
In the article ‘The Tools at Hand’, the authors state that “Every questionnaire must, finally, be handcrafted” (Converse, J. M., & Presser, S. (1986)) and that the designer must “cut and try, […] see how people react to it, […] and try again” (Converse, J. M., & Presser, S. (1986))
Like any piece of design, I need to allow time to test, get feedback and make changes to the questionnaire.
Exploration – Have a clear set of research purposes – Knowledge of work on the problem – How a survey could shed some new light
Exploratory study “should take investigators out beyond their own academic or industrial subculture, to new “experts”” (Converse, J. M., & Presser, S. (1986))
“Survey questions, finally, must seem fair to people of widely different viewpoints” (Converse, J. M., & Presser, S. (1986))
The article talks about how inquiry might involve interviews with members of the target population rather than consulting ‘the literature’ to gain a more authentic understanding of members of the group.
“At this exploratory stage, there is little prospect of formally sampling the target population, but interviewing even a few individuals can enrich the researcher’s perspective. Another useful procedure is to assemble somewhat more formally the insiders of a given subculture in a “focused discussion group.” This can be of special value when a target population is likely to have special perceptions, problems, and idioms that may be relatively foreign to the investigator—youth culture, gambling, drugs, prisons, and so on.”
Does this tie in to what I’m doing? As essentially I’m trying to understand the identities of people fro different backgrounds to my own?
Bibliography
Converse, J. M., & Presser, S. (1986). The tools at hand. In Survey Questions (pp. 48-75). SAGE Publications, Inc., https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412986045
Pew Research Center (2021). Writing Survey Questions. https://www.pewresearch.org/writing-survey-questions/
Naïma Ben Ayed’s article sheds light on the biases of teaching typography from the European perspective.
Collage of North African multiscript letters: “Museum” and “École Al-Moutanabi” pictures by Laura Meseguer. Alexandria Biennale poster, designed by Khalid Osman, 1980; Belkahia-Chebaa-Melehi group show in Rabat, poster designed by Mohammed Melehi, 1966 (Source: A History of Arab Graphic Design). Hand sticker, Association pour l’Émancipation de la Femme (AEF) Alger, 1991. Courtesy of Soumia Salhi (Source: Archives des Luttes des Femmes en Algérie). Faïza (1960) and Leïla (1937) magazine covers (Source: Bibliothèque Nationale de Tunisie). Other images from Naïma Ben Ayed’s archive.
“Latin is the script of the Global North, the center of the type design industry, and the hegemonic voice of capitalism. Consider where most commercial type foundries are based—Europe and North America. Even the tools we use to create typefaces are software designed for Latin by European and North American type engineers. Also, the majority of programs and specializations to study type design are located in Europe and North America.” (Ayed, 2023)
“Type, at its core, is a connector; a crucial node in the communication circuit that allows for the circulation of knowledge.” (Ayed, 2023)
“Brands want custom typefaces to speak with one voice across continents, pushing foundries operating in the global North to expand their libraries into multiple scripts with the hopes to breach into new markets.” (Ayed, 2023)
“Working against the legacies of colonialism and structures of capitalism, could we imagine a program to destabilize the hegemony of Latin and imagine type design education otherwise?” (Ayed, 2023)
“Multi-script typefaces provide matching qualities across various languages, guaranteeing that the different scripts are equally legible and express a similar identity. Wouldn’t it make sense for an approach to multi-script type design education to emerge in a context where multiple languages overlap on a daily basis? Working against the legacies of colonialism and structures of capitalism, could we imagine a program to destabilize the hegemony of Latin and imagine type design education otherwise?” (Ayed, 2023)
In Ayed’s principles for a design programme, she states:
Archiving is a vital collective ritual.
Bringing together people and knowledge from outside but connected to the discipline of type design facilitates zooming out and perhaps moving on from the status quo.
Type design is a vessel to facilitate the questioning, exploring, expanding, navigating, and expressing of identities in a broad sense and outside of branding.
Education is a collective, collaborative, and deeply caring project.
Ayed, N. B. (2023) ‘A Multi-Script Type Design Program: Imagining a playground for collective archiving, researching and letter-making’, Futuress, 29 Mar. Available at https://futuress.org/stories/letters-words-stories/ (Accessed 22 January 2025)
Thinking about themes of typography and cultural identity, my colleague Mikael Calandra Achode suggested looking at Mexican Blackletter by Cristina Paoli, a book that explores how a style of lettering has been culturally re-appropriated in Mexico, adorning countless stores, shapes, service providers, that it “speaks volumes about contemporary Mexican culture” (Paoli, 2006, p.5).
Mexican Blackletter by Cristina Paoli
Reasons for this: – Colonial Spanish background, present in consciousness but also architecture and cities – Associations with Christianity, rooted in European religious traditions – Cultural love of ornaments, colour and contrast, both playful and mysterious
All over the world newspapers and rustic establishments such as pubs and shops use blackletter in their mastheads and signage, communicating a sense of passage of time, tradition, etc.
Mexican Blackletter by Cristina Paoli
Blackletter was forbidden by the Nazis, connected to Jewish culture.
Mexican Blackletter by Cristina Paoli
Popular in the context of heavy metal and punk, mystic and obscure connotations.
Religious connotations, particularly Catholicism.
The book speaks to how signs, symbols, a style of lettering can can adopted by different cultures and also mean different things for those cultures. Shows how lettering and type design have the potential to speak about cultural identity but also that these letterforms might have different meaning for different communities.
“From talking to the people that decorate their body with it, or that draw the letterform on a sign, I have discovered that Mexicans feel that blackletter communicates “tradition,” or that “normal letters” – Roman type – just wouldn’t be good enough for the particular message they need to express.” (Paoli, 2006, p.23)
“Many who elect to employ blackletter for tattoos, signs and anything else imaginable believe that it takes the written message to a ‘religious’ level and therefore, implicitly, associates the message with a kind of transcendence. In speaking with people, words such as ‘tradition,’, religion’ and historical’ continually surfaced.” (Paoli, 2006, p.23)
Paoli, C. (2006) Mexican Blackletter. New York: Mark Batty
Stream-of-consciousness notes from Jokela, T., & Huhmarniemi, M. (2018) ‘Art-based action research in the development work of arts and art education’. The Lure of Lapland: a Handbook for Arctic Art and Design, pp.9–23. Rovaniemi: University of Lapland.
“art as a catalyst for development work” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.9)
When the article uses the word ‘art’ I will substitute for design.
“Art may be the intervention for problem solving or gaining new knowledge and understanding” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.9)
– In my intervention, I’m thinking of using design, a design project to gain new knowledge, through the outcomes the students create.
– Intervention is the design of the brief, the guidance, the references, the encouragement, the discussions.
– Research is also the outcomes of the student work
“Art can also be the subject of development or the tool for the research’s data collection and analysis” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.9)
My intervention uses design process and outcomes as the “subject of development”
“Art-based refers to the utilisation of art in research in such a way that stakeholders and members of the organisation or community can be included in the research, and tacit knowledge and experiences can be obtained from them” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.9)
In this project, what is tacit knowledge and what is explicit knowledge?
“the aim of research is typically to develop increasingly more functional practical working methods” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.9)
“ART-BASED ACTION RESEARCH AS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.10)
“We associate art-based action research as part of qualitative research” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.10)
“while qualitative research is based on verbal expression, art-based research is described with images, sounds, drama, etc.” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.10)
“According to Leavy (2009), quantitative research aims for the freedom of values, while qualitative research is based, in principle, on values, and art-based research is political and promotes freedom.” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.10)
“it is typical for [art-based action research] to be associated with social or environmental politics — more strongly than qualitative research traditionally is.” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.10)
objectivity and subjectivity
“Objectivity-theoretical research aims to produce objective knowledge by means of quantitative methods” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.11)
“Subjectivity-theoretical research uses research methods that aim for interpretations, understanding, and meaning” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.11)
“Research that is based on the development of practice can respectively be specified under subjective and objective” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.11)
My research is about the development of type design practice???
Pirkko Anttila’s diagram (2007, p.23)
– Where would my intervention be placed on this diagram? Objective / Practical?
“Critical-realistic art-based action research is participatory and aims for better practices” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.11)
“A research strategy is a guiding principle for the implementation of research” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.12)
“It is the ensemble of the research’s methodical approaches, which guide in the selection and use of research methods at both a theoretical and practical level.” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.12)
“Action research rests on processes of collaborative knowledge development and action design involving local stakeholders as full partners in mutual learning processes. (Greenwood & Levin, 2007, p. 1)” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.12)
‘Enhancing change’ – this is the goal!
“The orientations of action research in art-based action research have similar characteristics to design research.” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.13)
!!!!!!!! “The research process and results are documented, and this documentation is used as research material. Produced artistic work and artistic productions, as well as the participatory observation of activities, are also essential research materials.” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.14)
“In a manner typical of action research, the research questions are reoriented and further specified after each research cycle.” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.14)
– So for next cycle, how does the research question change? Become more focussed? What have you found out that changes this?
– There is tacit knowledge of the student – And explicit knowledge that tutors have taught during the four weeks
“In art-based action research, the artist-researcher does not wander alone, but instead development work is usually carried out in some kind of team or community.” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.14)
– This diagram became very useful in planning the stages of my ARP intervention cycle:
First I looked at the context of my ARP and did some research – Attainment gap (evidence in stats) – Lack of diversity in industry (Evidence) – Lack of equality in typefaces that represent global cultures and non-latin scripts (evidence) – What has been done in the field so far? Projects, research, etc – Build up the working team: this is my Stage 3 GCD practices group
Make action / art works – Students design the typefaces – explain process: starting point, weekly sessions, etc
Observe / document – Observe how the planned action works: pallet, photos, notes – Collect research data and make documentation (pallet) – Use research diaries, video and audio recordings (images on pallet)
Reflect / Evaluate data with the organisation, focus groups, users – work with the observation data in a ‘dialogical form’ what is this? – Use interviews, group interviews and group discussions based on the reflection data and participants experience (these were the group discussions at the end: recordings, photos exist of these)
COLLECTING AND ANALYSING MULTIPLE RESEARCH DATA
Research data can include: – meeting memos and notes? – Researcher’s personal observations of the activities (can make these) – Photographic documentation / – Completed pieces / – Sketches, drawings and other planning and design material made by the researcher or participants (material on pallet, slides by Dalton Maag, my slides, my class materials, the printouts of canon typefaces for example) – Documentation of the activities’ reflection and evaluation discussions (photos, notes and audio recordings of discussions) – Various interviews, questionnaires and other feedback (have bits of this) (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.16)
Observation diary – Personal observations should be complied ii an observation diary (didn’t really do this???) – I have photos on my iPhone and maybe notes? (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.16)
“Photographic and video documentation are common data of art-based action research. It is typical for this material not to be compiled solely for the purpose of the research, but instead they can be used to exhibit the contemporary art process at exhibitions and, for example, as study material. Documentation is needed for knowledge purposes, exhibitions, evaluation, reporting, and the planning of new projects, and not all needs can be anticipated during the project.” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.16)
“The analysis of such material does not differ from the qualitative analysis methods of material. However, it is possible in art-based research to apply artistic work to the analysis and interpretation of the material. In this case, the artist can process the photographic material into a photo collage or the voice recordings into an audio piece or an element of installation art. This type of method may also lead to the artistic representation of the research.” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.17)
– This is like Nav’s installation piece in his garden of the garments made in his workshop – For me it could be using the typefaces for something: an exhibition, for example, to compare and contrast the typeface designs, look at the effect on language, the voice of the typeface. – An exhibition in the CSM GCD studios would be a good way to do this and / or some kind of publication or website to disseminate the work and ideas. – In collaboration with Dalton Maag?
Evaluation
“The final results of the project are evaluated in two stages: as soon as the project ends and they are still fresh in one’s mind and later, when those involved have had a chance to reflect more on the experience.” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.17)
“The project participants’ concepts, experiences, and analyses form the basis for the entire project’s evaluation.” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.17)
“When activities are reviewed from the perspectives of the researcher, the participants, and the community or stakeholder groups, the review does not become too one-sided.” (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.17)
– Important to consider this in the next cycle or at a later date. To involve the participants in the evaluation. (Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018, p.17)
Next steps
The article states that “If the research has been completed in close cooperation with the community, the researcher should ask the community to also participate in the analysis of the material (Jokela, 2009).”
“Furthermore, if the analysis results are presented as an artistic production, the research result may be convergent with a production completed in a communal art process. The evaluation of art productions is an essential part of forming knowledge about the functionality of a method. The completed work demonstrates how functional, successful, and empowering the process has been. The evaluation criteria of effectiveness include, for example, the work’s and research’s ability to generate ideas, feelings, and mental images, as well as a sense of empowerment and increasing participants’ confidence in their own capabilities and skills (Jokela, 2009).”
– So it would be really interesting as a next step to involve the community in analysing the finding, maybe an exhibition that addresses this in the way the work is exhibited and captioned, to communicate these findings. Does this involve the typeface design industry in someway in order to bridge the gap between knowledge gained and how this permeates into the industry and design practice.
“An artistic production may be, for example, a place- and time-based process, work or event.” – An exhibition would fit into this
The article also talks about making the findings available to the general public (as users / “readers” of typefaces, this is interesting).
Methods – So is ‘art-based research’ the method?
Bias
“Art-based research is intentional. The objective of the research is influenced by, for example, by the researcher’s and community’s values and attitudes, even their political views. These background factors should be demonstrated in a transparent manner in the research process and reports.”
– Explain my relationship to the research topic, personal intentions
– I have consent from students
•••
P.21 outlines the steps
Some things I should do and evidence – Review research literature and art in the same field (Queer type stuff, articles on diversity, decolonisation etc) – Set goals – Clarify your research methods and ways of date collection
Team work – Identify possible project partners: Dalton Maag, students? UAL? – Create project group: GCD Practices block 2 – Build a common understanding: explained to students, pallet, course materials
Realisation and collecting research data – Plan activities – Plan ways to collect observation and documentation data (Padlet) – Implement activities and data collection – Celebrate the results by sharing them: class round-up. An exhibition could come later
Reflection, evaluation and reporting – Edit the observation and feedback data in usable form – Classify and analyse research data gathered (core themes and categories) – Evaluate results – make suggestions for improvement – Write a report as a form of development narrative
Jokela, T., & Huhmarniemi, M. (2018) ‘Art-based action research in the development work of arts and art education’. The Lure of Lapland: a Handbook for Arctic Art and Design, pp.9-23. Rovaniemi: University of Lapland
Again, going back to some core reading on the subject of typography and how I can connect the PgCert intervention and ideas of decolonisation to this.
I read Paul Luna’s excellent book Typography, Oxford University Press (2018).
Paul Luna, Typography (2018)
“There is some irony to be found in the fact that it took the dematerialisation of type, from metal to digital, to make it so widely present in so many minds.” (Luna, 2018)
“It takes a broad definition of typography – as design for reading, whether in print screen, or in the environment – and draws out ideas about the development of letterforms, the organisational and perceptual issues behind key typographic decisions, and the differences between printed and on-screen typography.” (Luna, 2018)
“The way we present language graphically has always been a subject for serious study, but often this work did not connect with or even reach the wider reading public.”(Luna, 2018)
“By mechanising the production of letters, the invention of printing both fixed the Latin script and enabled systematic variation of it.” (Luna, 2018:7)
“These constraints of consistency and repeatability meant that makers of type developed styles and conventions, establishing a canon of established letterforms.” (Luna, 2018:7)
“There was a general belief, throughout the artistic and scientific worlds (which of course were then not as separate as they are today), in divine proportion – a fundamental set of geometric relationships that can be found in nature, in mathematics, and even in man. This belief is most memorably demonstrated by Leonardo da Vinci” (Luna, 2018:9)
“The eye rather than measurement should be the arbiter of beauty.” (Luna, 2018:10)
“But if we look at any kind of modern publication, we see a variety of letterforms coexist. The headlines and text of a printed newspaper need to be distinct and on web pages links have to stand out – a typographic monoculture cannot support the variation and differentiation that we require for effective reading.” (Luna, 2018:17)
“Shopfronts, branding, and advertising show the great variety of letters that can evoke different expressive or emotional associations in the reader’s mind.” (Luna, 2018:17)
“Selecting the kinds of letters to use for any piece of typography is a fundamental design choice, because it can have an impact on all of these aims. Some are more legible, some are designed for particular technologies, and some strike us as having intrinsic emotional associations.” (Luna, 2018:17)
“What determines the shapes of the letters we use? […] And why do the shapes of some letters have such extraordinary communicative power, capable of affecting the way we perceive the messages that are written with them?” (Luna, 2018:17)
Luna, P. (2018) Typography: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press
The Decolonising Design Collective’s ‘A Manifesto for Decolonising Design’ was published in 2017 and states as current problems in the design industry:
“Much of the academic and professional discourse within the design disciplines over the last century has been bereft of a critical reflection on the politics of design practice”
And
“design theory, practice, and pedagogy as a whole are not geared towards delivering the kinds of knowledge and understanding that are adequate to addressing longstanding systemic issues of power”
“These issues are products of modernity and its ideologies, regimes, and institutions reiterating, producing and exerting continued colonial power upon the lives of oppressed, marginalized, and subaltern peoples in both the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ world.”
“This planet, shared and co-inhabited by a plurality of peoples, each inhabiting different worlds, each orienting themselves within and towards their environments in different ways, and with different civilizational histories, is being undermined by a globalized system of power that threatens to flatten and eradicate ontological and epistemological difference, rewriting histories and advance visions of a future for a privileged few at the expense of their human and nonhuman others.”
“mainstream design discourse has been dominated by a focus on Anglocentric/Eurocentric ways of seeing, knowing, and acting in the world”
And see potential solutions / ways forward as:
“a sharper lens needs to be brought to bear on non-western ways of thinking and being, and on the way that class, gender, race, etc,. issues are designed today.”
“highlighting of these issues through practices and acts of design, and the (re)design of institutions, design practices and design studies […] to be a pivotal challenge in the process of decolonisation”
They state that it’s not enough to increase diversity but that we must “seek the radical transfiguration of these structures through the critical eye of the programmatic imagination that dares to identify the possibilities and conditions that will give us alternatives to the now.”
Decolonising Design Collective. (Revised 2017, June 27). A Manifesto for Decolonising Design. Available at: https://www.decolonisingdesign.com/statements/2016/editorial/ (Accessed 26 November 2024)
Article by Ray Masaki on It’s Nice that exploring issues of inclusivity in type design.
Ray Masaki, It’s Nice that
Masaki “argues that a more equitable and diverse future of design will rely less on tools and technology and more on the decisions made by type designers.”
Masaki talks about the availability of modern digital tools and software and how this has increased access from previously marginalised communities, something that Catherine Dixon talks about in her conference presentation on Lettering and Typograohy.
“Due to the accessibility and relative affordability of modern type design and typesetting software, as well as multilingual support enabled by Unicode standards, the barriers to diverse typographic expression have been lowered over the past few decades.”
Ray Masaki, It’s Nice that
“While access to a more formal type design education is still limited in many parts of the world, the software itself has a much shallower learning curve, which makes it much more possible for one to become a self-taught type designer.”
He touches upon non-latin scripts:
“Accessibility towards designing non-Latin scripts, though not quite equal, is steadily evolving and improving as well.”
“I often wonder if there’s currently a lack of criticality and cultural sensitivity missing in that process.”
“A future of more inclusive type design and typography, in my opinion, is less about the tools and technology, but more about the unintentional or subconscious decisions that type designers are making around language support.”
Ray Masaki, It’s Nice that
“when language support is limited or designed improperly, the expression that is embedded within also becomes limited to people who are within similar language borders.”
“This, by extension, means that certain types of typographic visual expression are limited only to typographers who come from similar linguistic backgrounds.”
“Designers often hear the tired argument that there’s too many fonts out there, but when you consider that a Vietnamese typographer only has access to four per cent of the same tools, it places into perspective how typographic expression can be stifled by a lack of inclusive thinking.”
References
Masaki, R. (2023) ‘How typography can make a more inclusive future’, It’s Nice That, 4 Jan. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/features/forward-thinking-how-typography-can-make-a-more-inclusive-future-graphic-design-040123 (Accessed 4 December 2024)
