This morning I sat down with my course leader to discuss this project in a tutorial. We discussed how things were progressing and what outcomes I had discovered with my research, especially my primary research with Darren last week and my categorisation of logo work and illustration types within logo making.
The two main outcomes of this was firstly about the types of primary research I would be able to carry out, and how I would go about that. I’m being put in touch with a number of UoP alumni and current practising tutors / lecturers. This way I can ask them similar questions to Darren Tate about their working practises, how to deal with the brief, their methodology when it comes to logo making and illustration. In reflection of this, I need to spend some time working on my interview technique and honing the types of questions I ask to get the most useful responses possible.
The other outcome, that is linked to these interviews, is how people build up a body of knowledge, where that comes from and how they use it. In his book The Reflective Practitioner, Schon discusses how people work and talk about their work at the same time as two aspect of designing; “Drawing and talking are parallel ways of designing, and together make up what I will call the language of designing.” (Schon, 1983). It will be important to consider this as I discuss methodology with designers as there is often a barrier in communication between the subjects’ work and their description of it. The example I already encountered with Darren Tate was when drawing the bee’s face. He instinctually drew it, but I had to stop him and ask how he knew to do that. His answer was “…basically been drawing a very similar face since I was like 8.” But without me prompting this response he would have carried straight on as if everyone knew how to draw the cartoon face of a bee.
I believe that building up my knowledge, I will then begin to compile my own body of knowledge about illustration, illustration in logo design and logo design as a larger subject.
In their 2022 article ‘Issues of Power and Representation in/of the Local Context: The role of self-reflexivity and positionality in design research’ Oz and Timur discuss how important positionality is whilst undertaking research, especially primary research. When talking to other people for design research it is important to be conscious of whether you’re being treated as an “insider or outsider” (Oz & Timur 2022), whether you see yourself as one or the other, and how that affects the information you’re collecting. The article concludes that it is really not possible to be one or the other at all times, and “self-reflexivity is an important means of producing knowledge that is both diverse and equitable.”(Oz & Timur 2022). Meaning that there needs to be a fluidity during research, an ownership of your own positionally during it and a wide range of research, in order to get a range of viewpoints that will differ because of who your are when asking the questions.
These will all be important things to remember whilst conducting my research.