Seeing Studies: Practicing Praxis in Graphic Design

Abstract

This thesis is an attempt to further understand the relations between the "making of" and the "thinking about" in graphic design practice.

My starting point and main subject matter was the book Seeing Studies, a project I took part in as part of an internship at Bildwechsel/Image-Shift studio in Berlin in 2010. Seeing Studies is an investigation of seeing as a problem. It questions modes of communication, methods of instruction, and the ways in which worldviews are shaped. Reflecting and commenting on the design process that informed Seeing Studies, and looking into the larger questions that were at the heart of this project, this thesis seeks to contribute to the expansive discourse on graphic design as both a practice and an action.

Examining the ideas of practice and action as defined in the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, Aristotle, and Hanna Arendt, together with Bruno Latour’s concept of design, this thesis suggests that graphic design can be practiced as a "life deed," as an act of critical engagement with the world around us.