Research Statement

In Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, he splits visual practice into a number of steps and notes that visual practitioners often focus on digging into one of two key steps—Idea or Form. For graphic design, the first – the Idea, Purpose, or Content of the work – concerns itself with what design can do, what it can say. I’ve always found that the second – Form, and the methods and processes for creating it – intrigued me and captured my imagination more.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve placed how something happens on par with the outcome. As a designer, I’m in good company with this trait. Design often focuses on turning the inner logic of something into an outer logic, on bringing that internal logic to the surface. Looking deeply into Form means looking at how design creates the forms that do that, how design works, how it happens, and what it is. I look for ways I can plan projects, create inputs, and set parameters so that new forms blossom.

In some work, I invite other participants to take part. At times this has comprised the bulk of a piece of work, as in a poster whose pieces were designed by others according to boundaries I set up. In these situations, the final work is usually a single piece, but one created and influenced by many participants. Similarly, I’ve created computer programs that create new possibilities from a set of parameters. Like inviting other people into the design process, this method invites chance or math to create new or unexpected forms. This direction can create a great number of forms, like a monoprint taken to extremes.

Having spent the past five years splitting my time between design education and commercial practice, I’ve looked for ways to get these kinds of ideas – forms that branch and change – into practice. In doing so I’ve focused on how production methods can intersect with my interest in methodology. I look for ways to create a series of posters or flyers with a budget for just one. I look into the ways one font could be used to generate multiple typefaces. In doing these things, I excitedly cross boundaries. An interactive project morphs into screen printed one. A printed piece becomes Flash and back again.

The common thread through all of this is a curiosity about how design about design processes work. So, while I go through periods where my work may change, and be primarily print, or primarily interactive, that curiosity – and inquiry into the creation of Form and into how and what Design is – stays.

As so much of the design in the world is increasingly in dynamic, digital form, the question of planning and creating work that changes once out of the designer’s hands becomes more important. To the extent that graphic designers are increasingly digital designers, the questions I’ve been asking – what happens when I’m not in total control of this work, how can one form branch and become numerous new forms – stop being esoteric and become more central to designers’ lives. Websites, applications, and the other tools graphic designers now take part in making require their creators to plan how things will change and grow. We can plan the inputs and set parameters, but at some point, designing today means stepping back and watching the products of our work blossom.