Research Guides: GDES 220: Design Practices: Home

GDES 220 Assignment

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Archives & Indexing
Students will collect various materials and build an archive that can be utilized for analyzing and creating diverse methods of interpreting and translating its contents.
Archives & Futures
Students will create an archive that emphasizes speculative design techniques to envision alternative futures and narratives.

Subtopics

Cataloging • Content Management • Media Literacy • Libraries • Reference Building • Acknowledging Tools.

Creative Research for Graphic Design

Graphic Design Thinking: beyond brainstorming
Call Number: Access Online

Publication Date: NC997 .G674 2011

How to define problems, get Ideas, and create form. Explores a variety of techniques ranging from quick, seat-of-the-pants approaches to more formal research methods for stimulating fresh thinking, and arriving at compelling and viable solutions.
Visual Research: an introduction to research methods in graphic design
Call Number: NC997 .B44 2022

This book explores a range of research methods that can be used by graphic designers and visual communicators in the development of clear and purposeful design solutions. The book introduces key terms and theories that underlie design research; examining the importance of visual grammar and design literacy, audience, communication theory and semiotics.
Practice Based Design Research
Call Number: Access Online

Publication Date: 2017

Addresses a range of models and approaches to practice-based research, considering relationships between industry and academia, and explores how students' experiences of undertaking practice-based research has impacted their future design and research practice.

Art/Design + Archives

Art + Archive: understanding the archival turn in contemporary art
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2022

Art + Archive provides an in-depth analysis of the connection between art and the archive at the turn of the twenty-first century. The book examines how the archive emerged in art writing in the mid-1990s and how its subsequent ubiquity can be understood in light of wider social, technological, philosophical and art-historical conditions and concerns.
Installation Art and the Practices of Archivalism
Call Number: N6494.I56 J66 2016

This book engages with the recent growth in visual projects that respond to the archive, focusing in particular on installation art. It traces a line of argument from practitioners who explicitly depict the archive to those whose materials and practices are archival.
Staging the Archive: art and photography in the age of new media
Call Number: N7433.94 .A47 2014

This book is dedicated to art practices that mobilize the model of the archive, demonstrating the ways in which such archival artworks probe the possibilities of what art is and what it can do.
Art Making, Collections, and Obsessions: An Intimate Exploration of the Mixed-Media Work and Collections of 35 Artists
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2008

Looks at how artists use their collections to make artwork. Presented in gallery-style format, this work allows readers to see what artists collect, and the resulting artwork they make from it. It features the collections and the artwork of 33 major mixed-media artists. It also includes journals, assemblages, altered books, and jewellery pieces.
Magnificent Obsessions : the artist as collector
Call Number: N5210 .M34 2015

Exploring more than a dozen personal collections of contemporary artists, this unique and revealing book probes the aesthetic and psychological dimensions of collecting and shows how objects can influence and reflect their owners' work.
All This Stuff: Archiving the Artist
Call Number: N440 .A45 2013

All This Stuff breaks new ground in the field of archive theory. It documents the innovative ways in which the arts are challenging the distinctions, processes, and crossovers between artworks and archives. This critical reexamination exemplifies how the field of art archiving is changing theory and practice as well as our understanding of what an archive is, or could begiven into the archival process and the book also explores how archives can be made accessible and the unpredictable ways in which they may be explored and reinterpreted in the future.

Art/Design + Curation

The Designer As...: author, producer, activist, entrepreneur, curator & collaborator : new models for communicating
Call Number: NC997 .M365 2013

The role of designers in communication and visual culture is evolving, from designers serving as commercial 'hired guns' to assuming the more empowering roles of design authorship. The role of the designer can expand to being the author, producer, curator, network facilitator, activist, consultant, entrepreneur ... the list goes on and on.
The philosophy of curatorial practice : between work and the world
Call Number: ebook

This book walks us through the process of how artworks eventually get their meaning. Using notions of belonging and membership and applying analytic perspectives, it shows us how curated exhibitions invite audience members to infer an exhibition's narrative threads, giving artworks their contents and discursive sense.
Curatopia: museums and the future of curatorship
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2018

What is the future of curatorship? Is there a vision for an ideal model, a curatopia, whether in the form of a utopia or dystopia? Or is there a plurality of approaches, amounting to a curatorial heterotopia? This pioneering volume addresses these questions by considering the current state of curatorship. It reviews the different models and approaches operating in museums, galleries and cultural organisations around the world and discusses emerging concerns, challenges and opportunities.
When Artists Curate: contemporary art and the exhibition as medium
Call Number: N408 .G74 2018

An increasing proportion of exhibitions are curated by artists rather than professional curators. This book provides the first critical history of visual artists curating exhibitions.
Book Marks an Artist's Card Catalog: notes from the library of my mind
Call Number: ND237.P1668 A2 2021

Intricate collages and drawings created on old library checkout cards, each one representing a book that left an indelible mark on artist Barbara Page.

Art/Design + Editing/Criticism

Critiqued: Inside the Minds of 23 Leaders in Design
Call Number: NC997 .B368 2014

Critiqued takes you on a journey with designer Christina Beard through an iterative design experiment. With her poster in tow, she meets with leading designers, writers, and curators. At each stop, the participant critiques the poster and talks about his or her own design process. Based on their conversation, Christina redesigns the poster before heading to the next critique — a process similar to the children’s game telephone.

Top Graphic Design Databases

Use these arts and humanities databases to search for scholarly articles and essays on graphic design topics.

Bloomsbury Design Library
Cross-searchable access to a broad and expanding range of encyclopedias, reference works, e-books, images, and more covering the global history, theory, and practice of crafts and design.
Library Stack
Library Stack is an online archive of digital arts publications from the fields of contemporary art, graphic design, architecture, film and philosophy. Library Stack draws from diverse global platforms, and has a particular focus on hybrid works.
Design and Applied Arts Index (DAAI)
International index to articles in hundreds of design and craft journals. Also contains data on designers, craftspeople, studios, schools, workshops, and firms.
Communication and Mass Media Complete
Communication studies database with full-text, indexing, and abstracts for many top communication journals covering all related disciplines, including media studies, linguistics, rhetoric, and discourse.
ARTbibliographies Modern
Abstracts of journal articles, books, essays, exhibition catalogs, dissertations, and exhibition reviews on all forms of modern and contemporary art.
JSTOR
Searchable backfiles of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. (Backfiles end typically 3 - 6 years prior to the current date).

Archival Collections Online

Use these online archives to browse for a wide range of materials, including books and images.

HathiTrust Digital Library
Vast repository of digital content. Searchable access to millions of books, journals, and other serials covering all subjects and many languages. Full-text access to public domain and open access items.

Internet Archive
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. ·
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
Millions of materials from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions across the country, available to all in a one-stop discovery experience.

Citations

Citation Styles Research Guide
VCU Libraries guide to citing information in a variety of formats including APA, MLA, and Chicago.
Citation Tools
Provides information about choosing and using citation tools such as Mendeley, Zotero, and EndNote.
Purdue OWL - Research & Citation Resources
Comprehensive guide to in-text and reference list citations for APA, MLA and Chicago styles.

GDES 220: Design Practices

Related Guides

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Artist Examples

Bloomsbury Design Library

Library Stack

Art Browsery

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