GRAPHIC DESIGN 2.0. Marco Neves Faculdade de Arquitectura, Rua Sá Nogueira Pólo Universitário, Alto da Ajuda, Lisboa

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1 GRAPHIC DESIGN 2.0 Marco Neves Faculdade de Arquitectura, Rua Sá Nogueira Pólo Universitário, Alto da Ajuda, Lisboa Abstract The current practice of graphic design is located between the traditional approach to the project and the possible interference that information and communication technologies operate in it. Graphic designers have made use of these technologies but do not fully understand them. As a consequence they have not availed two concepts that are present in the constitution of Web 2.0 and that turned out to be fundamental: interactivity and participation. Neither have they taken the best that these notions can assign to the activity and to the material relationship with the receivers. Interaction design appropriated interaction, without treating it as its object of study. Simultaneously the possibility of printed matter becoming interactive itself without using other technologies, remains to be analyzed. The participatory aspects in printed objects has been restricted to the visual reception of messages or, in a more distant way, by condoning Do it Yourself (DIY); but there has not existed a definition of co-creation applied to printed matter. The study of this boundary between graphic design and interactivity will assess the potential benefit of changing the printed object in favor of its receiver. The transfer of these concepts for the graphic project occurs through the use of production technologies and the available materials to the designer. This interference can cause a boost in innovating design methodologies for conceiving and communicating graphic design. We identified reference examples that induce these assumptions in project practice. A review of the main literature was performed and the opportunities present in printed objects were crossed with the interactive and participatory characteristics identified in digital objects. We expect to demonstrate that the study and practice of graphic design can value a broader sense. It becomes possible to conclude that the development of this subject can lead to significant changes in graphic projects and that the relationship they have with the receivers can improve. Keywords Graphic design, interactivity, participation, Web 2.0 Acknowledgment: This work was carried out at CIAUD Centro de Investigação em Arquitectura, Urbanismo e Design with support of Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia. Introduction Digital technologies may have an influence on our experience of printed matter, which is not limited to an electronic existence. In presenting his idea of relational design, Andrew Blauvelt indicates several ways in which objects can be presented to their users «However, the new practices of relational design include performative, pragmatic, programmatic, process-oriented, open-ended, experiential and participatory elements. This new phase is preoccupied 1

2 with design's effects extending beyond the design object and even its connotations and cultural symbolism.» 1 This effect translates into an enlarged and interactive capability, required in today's projects that fall within a context shaped by the presence of digital technologies and that may or may not change the assumptions of the work process in graphic design. Graphic design 1.0 Defining and contextualizing graphic design is a complex and time-consuming task. We can however accept that it is a project activity, where there is organization, limitations and a purpose of creation for the future. This activity develops objects based in visual compositions, using in most cases printing technologies for mass production. The designer undertakes a manipulation of available graphic elements to give a meaning to the obtained set. There is ambivalence in conceiving a graphic design project. To the striking formal and stylistic concern, which arises from the preponderance of the designer while creative author, it adds the pragmatism and efficiency required by different objects, «advertising design is expected to make people buy products or services; political or ideological propaganda is expected to affect people s beliefs and actions; regulatory signs on highways are intended to organize the flow of traffic; teaching aids are supposed to improve learning performance; bank notes are designed to make forgery difficult and identification of one denomination from another easy.» 2 Although agreement on these aspects can last, it is as necessary to understand graphic design and thus contribute to its development, to say what it is, as what it is not. Above all, to distinguish it from several practices that in spite of close and beneficial, should be studied in their own way. Graphic design is not multimedia, although it uses quite a few common elements. Nor is it interaction design, or at least not in the way the term has come to be widespread, as something hunched over computer media. Nor is it interface design, although it cooperates in its implementation. Information and communication technologies, that brought transverse possibilities to a number of practices, contribute to a possible misunderstanding. But the context of its inclusion in graphic design also offers advantages in execution and production time. It has become common the use of software that gathers the tools for detailed design and implementation of an object and simultaneously allows the proper preparation and assistance in the production process. In parallel, various digital creations stand as substitute for some printed objects, thereby threatening their continuity in material culture. While printed production lives in this vertigo, a set of applications builds on the Internet seducing users by providing them with different characteristics from those that we can recognize in printed matter. Web 2.0 There is a side of the digital creations that populate the Web and that remains to be availed or included in graphic design projects. The XXI century has been prolific in the emergence of digital phenomena, which are now used daily, in a considerable geographical spread and grouped under the name "Web 2.0". 1 Andrew Blauvelt, Towards Relational Design. 2 Jorge Frascara, "Graphic Design: Fine Art or Social Science?", p.46. 2

3 The appearance of this term is attributed to Darcy DiNucci that in 1999 foresaw the use of the Internet as a platform of interactivity. In 2004 Tim O'Reilly and his team at O'Reilly Media organize the first conference on the subject, where the idea "Web 2.0" 3 takes form as the transition of computer software applications for the Web. This means not using them from the desktop but directly online. It also implies the promotion of users participation. As opposed to the passive viewing of Web sites, now considered traditional, these applications allow the user to create some of its contents, by sharing information in a interactive and collaborative way. Each user produces information and contributes in some way to formalize the digital object. The Web thus becomes participatory and not only informative. The major examples of these applications are blogs, wikis and social networks. They gave rise to today such known phenomena and with high commercial values as: Blogger, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, among many others. This delivery to users of ability to save and create information and the possibility to spread it indicates the presence of interactivity and participation, made possible by a broad set of features. You can search within the digital object, each user can create and update multiple types of content in different formats, it became feasible to categorize information, formed or not by groups and thus facilitate its subsequent search through tags, you can make notification of updates to multiple users by syndication. The importance attached to this designation has been so great that Time magazine considered "You" as Person of the Year in 2006, making reference to all users and contributors who are changing not only the Internet, but somehow the world. Participation and interactivity stand out as important concepts, making it likely to be adopted as features in different areas. Interaction and interactivity Interaction design appropriated the term "interaction" to explain a particular implementation where different tasks and activities converge. According to Dan Saffer, the term was given by Bill Moggridge to the professional practice that he and some colleagues at IDEO developed and where they used elements of product design, communication design and computer-based sciences, «No, this was something different. It drew on all those disciplines, but was something else, and it had to do with connecting people through the products they used.» 4 But both definition and activity tends to be limited to computing devices. The area turns out to describe the behaviour of a device or a system in response to its users. However, this understanding of interaction design can also be applied to various situations, since interaction is common to many activities, it is a transversal concept, not limited to human-computer interaction. As a consequence, also interactivity, which has as its main feature to be reciprocal. This is a concept that escapes the visual field and focuses on behaviours, thus requiring the user's participation. Participation The participation of the receiver within graphic design is implied. Visual communication is only possible when someone observes the message. Therefore, 3 As described in Tim O'Reilly, What Is Web Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. 4 Dan Saffer Designing for interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices, p. 2. 3

4 graphic design exists in the sense that, by being received, fulfils its purpose. However, this level of participation does not allow the receiver to interfere in the finalization of the object, or to customize it. In recent times there has been some dedication to this topic in the field of design. It has been talked and written about co-creation and Design it yourself 5. However, a graphic design project does not allow still co-creation by the receiver. Other areas have developed it, but in print there are no known efforts. Moreover, DIY is not really a chance to participate, but rather the replacement of the designer by the alleged user. The user does not participate in the project, he is the one who creates and performs it. It is even limited in the sense that «First of all, people, not users, inhabit the world. A user is something that designers create.» 6 In other words, the notion of user exists within an object-centred understanding. The designer then transforms the person into user by achieving not only the shape and functionality of the object but also its perception and the experience that people have of it. Despite the digital, the paper Digital possibilities, even in large numbers do not always compare to the tactility of the printed material. There is a three-dimensional characteristic, non-simulated that graphical objects have and that is commonly given by paper, through folds and cuts, «El trabajo pensado para ser construido en papel suele implicar un factor de participación por parte del lector.» 7 It will be interesting to explore and develop which levels of participation, from its development to the maintaining of a simplicity that makes any object accessible. The large amount of printed objects involves a predictable presentation and handling, planned in detail by the designer that convinces himself that the object works so well that it is not a matter of questioning. But printed media is malleable and changeable and despite general practice does not take advantage of graphic design s spatial and temporal possibilities, there are examples where the risk is taken in including solutions that promote interactivity and user participation. Conclusion The connection of these two areas allows a good understanding that lies beyond the simple and convenient use of digital technologies. There is possibility of adapting printed objects through the inclusion of interactivity and participation in the moment of conception. There is a practice that places between the current process in graphic design and what can be expected in a near future by means of intersections with the digital environment. The designer plans the printed object for a specific reception, in the same way as a programmer anticipates the demands of an Internet user. But the research and development of a group of action-reaction situations, which reflects the central notion of interactivity differs from what is observable on graphic objects, 5 Adaptation of the term DIY (Do it yourself) to design in Ellen Lupton (ed.), D.I.Y - Design it yourself. 6 Johan Redstrom, Towards user design? On the shift from object to user as the subject of design, p «The work intended to be built on paper usually means a factor of participation by the reader F. T., Natalie Avella, Diseñar con papel, p. 7. 4

5 mass-produced without the possibility of customization, lacking a participatory nature and designed using repetitive formats, schemes and strategies. The emphasis on Web 2.0, does not formalize technical specifications, but a different relationship, for those who produce applications, and for the ones who use them. It will be fruitful to carry the advantages that the inclusion of these concepts make possible, to graphic design. Discovering alternatives for material existence reflects the importance of the user at the heart of the project. References [1] AVELLA, N. (2010). Diseñar con papel. (2 nd Edition). Barcelona: Gustavo Gili. (Original work published Paper Engineering, 3-D design techniques for a 2-D material by Rotovision in 2009). [2] BLAUVELT, A. (2008). Towards Relational Design. Design Observer. In [acessed Mar. 20, 2009]. [3] FRASCARA, J. (1988). "Graphic Design: Fine Art or Social Science?" Design Issues 5(1): pp [4] GROSSMAN, L. (2006) Time's Person of the Year: You. Time Magazine. In [acessed Jan. 18, 2010]. [5] LUPTON, E. (ed.) (2006). D.I.Y - Design it yourself. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. [6] MOGGRIDGE, B. (2006). Designing Interactions. The MIT Press [7] O REILLY, T. (2005). What Is Web Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. In [acessed Oct. 21, 2010]. [8] REDSTROM, J. (2005). Towards user design? On the shift from object to user as the subject of design. Design Studies 27 (2006), pp [acessed Aug. 6, 2009 from ScienceDirect database]. [9] SAFFER, D. (2007). Designing for interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices, New Riders. 5