Trust the Process: An Ethnography of Writing in Design

Trust the Process An Ethnography of Writing in Design

Edited by Madison Sabatelli

Trust the Process An Ethnography of Writing in Design

Edited by Madison Sabatelli

Acknowledgements

Special thanks are in order for the my colleagues who have contribtuted to the contents of this book, including Abigail Ayers, Yang Chen, Simon Lalonde, Noor Murteza, Will Nickley, and Yiting Wang.

My research interest in the intersection of writing and design is inspired by both my own experiences and validation from the design community. As an undergraduate studying Interior Design in 2011, a classmate working next to me late at night in studio introduced me to Pinterest. How wonderful, a website to store and organize all of my found images, rather than my somewhat barbaric technique of emailing websites to myself, bookmarking pages, and pasting images into a word document. I soon found that I was heavily reliant on these images, however. As I attempted to come up with my own ideas framed from my mood boards assembled on Pinterest, I found it harder to not simply conform to the designed spatial arrangements in front of me.

This issue continued to plague me until my Junior year, when I implemented a self-study to use writing as a means for conceptualization. The project was largely successful; I founded four important methods for using writing as a designer: words, literature/poetry, narrative, and reflection. Because this was a self-study, however, and I consider myself to be a fairly strong writer, it was difficult to try and recommend these practices to other designers who preferred sketching and more visual tools.

With this in mind, I entered grad school knowing I wanted to focus my interests outward.

At the onset of my graduate studies, I hoped to introduce design students to writing practice.

I wanted to hypothesize how different design activities would help designers in different parts of the design process, and test these out among design groups. However, once I began my research, I found that while writing can be helpful in forming design concepts, there was little documentation to demonstrate how writing was already being used by designers.

This was excellent news for me - a gap! In rerouting my interests from something toolfocused to something observation-focused, I dove headfirst into the methods of conducting ethnographic research and trying to learn more about the different lenses through which to view what exactly I was looking at.

While exploring this new methodology, I executed a small study that catalogued the use of writing practices in the sketchbooks of fellow graduate students and also included a short survey for participants to answer questions about their writing practices. Although my thesis research turned to working with a variety of undergraduate students, this initial engagement with graduate students allowed me to not only become familiar with its research tools, but also the personalities and design processes of my colleagues. Through observation and interview, I began to understand the ways in which writing is being utilized while also reflecting the experience of graduate school.

This compilation of graduate process work aims to circle back to this initial engagement in ethnographic research while also acknowledging the behind-the-scenes practices of graduating MFA students as they have engaged in their own research and course of study.

While sometimes I do not think that my own research around writing is so important; it will not outwardly save someone’s life, confront a difficult issue, or deal with a societal problem. However, I do think that it has the ability to tell a story that is rich and intriguing and useful. With that, it is my goal to at least make it a good one.

Background

The act of externalizing thoughts is a difficult one met with many choices, first and foremost being the mode in which an idea is conveyed, often either as written words or sketches.

While design is often thought of as a visual discipline, the use of writing can be just as pertinent and necessary. When we normally think of the conceptual process for designers, the familiar image of the Moleskine comes to mind. Pages of quick sketches for various projects are sandwiched between black covers. This trail of design iterations serves as unofficial documentation of the concepts tested, altered and discarded. But when looking deeper we see that there are not just visuals among the sketchbooks, papers, and computer screens to communicate design concepts. Scribbles of text fill the margins too, with notes and arrows pointing to the pictures beside them.

Utilizing submissions from graduate design students within the Department of Design at The Ohio State University, I have gathered examples of the ways in which text aids in the development of design ideas to analyze and categorize in the following typologies.

Introduction

Writing to....

Understand Plan Caption Organize Reflect

Understand Writing early on in a project begins to relay major ideas, goals, or concepts.

Jottings from class presentations, quick lists of ideas, and bullet points of programmatic considerations fill pages of moleskins. These markings allow design students to start to engage in the cognitive act of writing to approach their designs with intention through thorough documentation.

Noor Murteza Design Research and Development

Yang Chen Design Research and Development

Will Nickley Design Research and Development

Yiting Wang Design Research and Development

Plan Writing also serves in a more practical sense in the form of planning. A written to-do list, sequencing of events and project progress, and bullet pointed lines of material needs can be found alongside drawings of designs in sketchbooks.

Graduate students write as they work together in groups as well, outlining schedules, project expectations, and team member tasks. In this way, writing works as a way to move ideas and representations into presentable plans.

Abigail Ayers Digital Animation and Interactive Media

Yiting Wang Design Research and Development

Noor Murteza Design Research and Development

Caption The use of writing does not necessarily mean the absence of drawings, however.

Writing used to point to specific parts of graphic representations with arrows, name shapes and forms, and reinforce the meaning of drawings helps to further communicate visual concepts. This informal orchestration of text and visuals aides graduate design students in aligning intangible concepts with material outcomes.

Noor Murteza Design Research and Development

Simon Lalonde Design Research and Development

Abigail Ayers Digital Animation and Interactive Media

Will Nickley Design Research and Development

Organize Writing also serves in a more practical sense in the form of organizing ideas. Designers demonstrate and understanding and application of complex concepts in the form of diagrammatic layouts. This can be thought of as a kind of shorthand of a formal verbal or written declaration of ideas, an outline of major concepts graduate students are grappling with in their work.

Yiting Wang Design Research and Development

Will Nickley Design Research and Development

Design Research and Development

Forms of Media Generated

Codesign Maketools

Generate Ideas

Writings

Drawings

Pictures

Diagrams

Models

Videos

Gather Ideas

Audio Recordings

With

Simon Lalonde Design Research and Codesign Synthesis Tools Development To Faithfully

Co-Creation To Help with

DEVELOPING NEW SYNTHESIS TOOLS

Uses

HOW CAN WE LIMIT THIS LOSS OF DATA?

Participants (Citizens) Resp

Design Team

bilit

onsi

NEW MEDIA TO REPORT THE SYNTHESIS?

y Need to Find

Planning Codesign

Generate Ideas

Project

Sponsor

Report

Synthesis

ExBD (Experience-Based Design) Residual Data Moments of Divergences

WHAT IS THE VALUE OF THE RESIDUAL DATA?

Project

Moments of Convergences

Citizen Participation

Ensure a Faithful Synthesis of Codesign Activities Results in the Context of Public Projects Development Public Project Development Public Policies

Public Services

Public Sectors Health Care

Education

Judicial System

Social Services

Military

Urban Planing

Public Infrastructures

Natural Resources

Emergency Services

Waste Management

Telecommunications

First Year review - Research Interests Mapping

Public Transport

Environmental Protection

Simon Lalonde | April 2019

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Design Research and Development

Noor Murteza Design Research and Development

Abigail Ayers Digital Animation and Interactive Media

Noor Murteza Design Research and Development