#design writing

[drawdownbooks]

NEW at Draw Down: Revue Faire no. 42, 43, 44, and 45 This anthology collection brings together four separate issues, including N° 44 — "A conundrum: the visual communication of neuroscience" by James Langdon

Neuroscience is a visual science. Our understanding of the brain’s biology originates in the beautiful and pioneering images of neurons and dendrites produced by Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Camillo Golgi in the late nineteenth century. In recent decades neuroscience has embraced computational imaging. We have witnessed dynamic images of living brains produced by fMRI, and intricate, colorful representations of “neutral connectomics” that promise ultimately to reveal the ‘wiring diagram’ of the human brain. Such images are not merely the documentation of scientific work; they are themselves primary sites of research. The images are the science.

And yet the interaction of neuroscience with mainstream visual culture tends toward the simplistic and the amateurish. Science communication seems to regard graphic design and art direction skeptically, preferring to contextualize its technical images with a collage of cartoons, internet memes, and generic high-tech stock photography. The emerging neurotechnology industry, by contrast, adopts the visual language of corporate “big tech.” Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Neuralink project presents its experimental neural implant technology as if it were an innocent commercial appliance. These observations are urgent. Inevitably neuroscience will soon yield opportunities for technologically augmenting the human brain that could further entrench inequality and stratification in our society. This text is not a call for more friendly interdisciplinary collaboration between graphic design and neuroscience, but a pointed critical assessment of the visual literacy of one field from the perspective of another.

Published by Editions Empire Bilingual, in French and English

148 pages total, each issue separately bound, b&w and color images, 8.25 × 11.75 inches

ISBN: 979-1-09-599142-7

[galleryyuhself]

A Designer Teaches People How to See Others Who Are Not Like Them

The crucial question is how to ensure diversity is always top of mind, regardless of who the designers or students are.

~Galleryyuhself~ Dr Lesley Ann Noel’s look at design and diversity.

[mauricecherry]

RECOGNIZE, Vol. 2 — "Fresh" is here! https://recognize.design/ RECOGNIZE is a design anthology that features essays and commentary from indigenous people and people of color — the next generation of emerging design voices. We started out 2020 with a lot of plans for RECOGNIZE, but once COVID-19 became a reality, we had to unexpectedly change course after a series of issues threatened whether or not we could even publish a second volume. After a three-month planning period and reworking a few deadlines, we managed to keep RECOGNIZE going and come through with this year for you, the design community. Enjoy!

[mauricecherry]

Submissions for RECOGNIZE, Vol. 2 are now open! 

[sophiastiegler]

“When is a movement not a movement? - When it’s a marketing campaign in a movement’s clothing.” - Mary Brigh In my design writing thesis I am taking a stand on the so-called femvertising marketing trend. This advertisement technique puts female empowerment  centre-stage. Not a bad thing at first, but what’s behind the facade of brands doing so? - Comparing two brands (Nike - einhorn Berlin) and their marketing strategies, that seem completely different at first but have surprisingly many commonalities. 

photo credits to concept photographer Marius Sperlich and einhorn Berlin.

[dontouchannah-blog]

Are children born creative? Are they taught it? In other words, how much of a child’s creative thinking ability is nature, and how much of it is nurture? The answer, as I’ve gleaned from multiple academic studies on different variations of this issue, is nurture. 

           Creativity in adults and children is typically analyzed through something called a Torrance Test. It is comprised of two parts, a verbal and a figural test. The Verbal test evaluates creativity on a verbal level...

and the Figural test asks participants to complete drawings and utilize their imaginations...

...using cues like these:

          Using the Torrance Test, a 2019 Polish study by Dorota Jankowska and Maciej Karwowski found that children from higher socio-economic households had higher creative thinking ability at the start of a formal education (Kindergarten), but as the school year progressed the household’s income had almost nothing to do with the rate at which a child adapted to and implemented taught creative thinking processes. A similar study regarding race and social class was conducted by Joseph Moreno and John Hogan in 1976. They came upon a similar conclusion, that education and environment effected a child’s creative thinking ability more than un-controllable factors such as race.

           I find that these results make me slightly uncomfortable. It’s not that I believe low-income, non-white, uneducated parents can’t produce creative children, what makes me uncomfortable is that the structure and resources required to promote creative thinking abilities are not made available to all children. Both of the studies above discussed the influence of quality education on children’s measurable creativity, which, unfortunately, is something that low-income neighborhoods and their surrounding schools do not typically have access to (because of tax-dependent funding). Matthew Lynch, an author for “The Edvocate”, expresses this sentiment in his article “Poverty and School Funding: Why Low-Income Students Often Suffer”. In it, he laments the fact that Title I schools have been receiving less and less funding every year since 2010, meaning that low-income students are missing out on learning resources, which furthers the creative gap between low-income and high-income schools.

           Furthermore, Jankowska and Karwowski acknowledged that the key to higher creative thinking ability in pre-school aged children is “…both autonomy and structure”. From both personal and professional experience, autonomy and structure for a child are easier to achieve in a safe neighborhood, in a home that receives consistent and adequate income, and with at-least one parent or responsible caregiver available to the child at any given time. They also tied the number of books present in a home to a child’s Torrance Test score before being enrolled in formal schooling. This means that families with more disposable income and with educated adults in the home have a higher likelihood of sending a creative child into the school system.

           I believe that the keys to cultivating creativity and creative thinking abilities in children, both prior-to and during formal schooling, are resources and funding. To help shape the creative thinking abilities of children from low-income communities, please consider donating your new or gently used books. 

[mauricecherry]

The long wait is over — the design anthology RECOGNIZE is here! Check it out over at Inside Design, and read the entire collection, including an introduction from me. Each essay is also accompanied by custom art from illustrator Robert Liu-Trujillo!

Huge thanks to everyone who submitted an essay for the inaugural volume of RECOGNIZE, and special thanks goes out to InVision for funding this anthology, hosting it, and for their editors’ work with helping polish these essays for publication.

Enjoy!