The practitioner-researcher contribution to a developing criticism for graphic design

Abstract

An increasing number of designers are reflecting critically on the nature of the profession and their place within it by conceptualising graphic design as a form of practice-based research. The model of the ‘practitioner-researcher’ is seeing the self-conscious designer forming a more critical disposition in relation to her discipline. Captured in scholarly work, but also often in more open and less prescriptive environments (online forums, Readers, catalogue essays, interviews, independent press publications, etc.), critical exchanges from the community of practice and practitioner-produced writing and theory offer an alternative to the model of the outside critic looking in. This paper discusses the nature and form of this discourse and considers its potentially overlooked contribution to a developing criticism for graphic design.