Lexicon and Bibliography:

Audience/Context/Culture
Lexicon
 audience: A reading, listening or viewing public (group of people). The group of people
for whom a work of design is intended.
 context: The circumstances or setting in which something exists or happens that help
us fully understand its meaning.
 visual language: A set of iconic elements of a style that have been extracted and used
with deliberate reference to the ideas according to which the original style was
created.
 cultural hierarchy: An outdated system in which economically or culturally elite
“high” culture was ranked above everyday, mainstream “middle” or “low” culture.
Today, these terms are primarily used to describe form or visual languages when
analyzing the meaning of a work of design.
 agenda: The underlying intentions or motives of a person or group, such as the
designer/studio or client.
 function: The intended purpose or application of a design work.

Thinking is generally 
a very solitary subjective activity. 
Our thoughts are our own. 
We use the medium of language or words to externalize 
our thoughts and ideas to communicate them to others, 
just as I'm doing for you now. 
As graphic designers, we work 
with words and language as content, 
but our ideas and the things we make are 
communicated not through words 
but through the visual form we give them. 
One might go so far as to say 
that form is a kind of language, 
where meaning is constructed by an audience 
reading or interpreting compositions of imagery, 
color, shape, and text inside a larger cultural context. 
For graphic designers, the ability to use visual form as 
a medium for thinking or developing 
ideas is central to our process. 
In our process, we think through making. 
This way of working, 
this thinking through making, 
requires that we communicate 
with others outside ourselves. 
Using shared symbols, words, and visual languages. 
Part of this thinking through making process 
is establishing clear criteria, 
standards or intentions to allow us to 
evaluate what we make and move our thinking forward. 
If we view the iterative process not as 
a way to make variations or get to a certain outcome, 
but as a way to ask questions about 
and better understand the thing we're making. 
The best way to respond to 
these questions is by making form. 
We're not looking for a single outcome 
or solution to a problem, 
but we're conducting inquiry or generative research 
which is another way of saying we're 
making stuff in response to ideas. 
By responding through making as 
opposed to trying to visualize the solution, 
we're processing our ideas 
and thoughts through visual form. 
In so doing, we're unlocking 
the possibility to arrive at unforeseen outcomes. 
We have the potential to make 
beyond what we can already visualize 
because we've clearly stated what we intend the form to 
do or to be without predetermining what it looks like. 
This is the space where anything is possible. 
I'm going to walk you through 
a quick example of thinking through making with 
a project I completed as 
a graduate student studying 
Graphic Design here at CalArts. 
What you're seeing here is a type specimen for Didot, 
which was one of the first modern typefaces. 
A type specimens job or 
function is to showcase the formal attributes, 
range of weights, and 
potential applications of a typeface. 
It showcases but also inspires. 
The audience is almost 
exclusively printers and designers. 
I chose Didot as the subject of my type specimen. 
As I mentioned before, 
it was one of the first modern typefaces. 
In typographic terms, this means it was 
not based on calligraphy or the movements of a pen. 
But it was based on a system of parts that made 
up precise letter forms with repeatable elements, 
the antithesis of calligraphic form. 
The thicks and the thins in the typefaces are extreme. 
This was made possible by technological advances in 
paper-making and steel and 
copper engraving that allowed 
for greater precision in detail. 
Today we typically see 
Didot associated with high-fashion, 
most notably the Harper's Bazaar logo. 
So there are two key points that 
emerge from this background. 
First, Didot is a historical typeface 
with origins in technological innovation, 
and second, Didot is still in use and is 
associated with high fashion and high-end culture. 
These observations can be 
distilled further and rephrased as 
ideas about design rather than facts about type design. 
So on an idea level, 
we can say that the type specimen book is 
meant to be about two things: one, 
the co-existence of tradition and technology, 
and two, the changing nature 
of what we identify as high culture. 
But what about these things? 
How do we connect these ideas to the content and 
form in a way that the reader 
can access or understand them? 
How do we create meaning? 
The first iterations of the type specimen translate 
these ideas into 
three specific forms and structures: first, 
the use of the centered axis to signify 
tradition and classical typography, second, 
the use of the modular grid to signify 
modern or contemporary culture, and third, 
the collision of these two worlds into 
a third thing that is both 
beautiful as in balanced and harmonious, 
and the challenges traditional notions of beauty. 
The first two ideas, 
the use of the centered axis and 
the modular grid, are pretty straightforward. 
This iteration gives these ideas away immediately. 
There's no sense of revealing or 
pacing and everything seems pretty flat. 
The last idea, this third thing that embraces 
and challenges beauty remains unvisualized. 
The type specimen isn't doing that third thing. 
The idea and the form still 
need to develop in tandem with each other. 
The thinking needs to evolve through the making. 
You'll see that each subsequent iteration shows 
the ideas growing in depth and complexity, 
and shows the idea applied to more aspects of the design. 
Each iteration ask questions such as, 
what if the centered axis is not 
constrained to being in the center of the page? 
What if the axis is centered relative to 
other elements or relative 
to the spread instead of the page? 
Or what if any axis or 
column on the modular grid can be the center? 
Would there then be multiple centers on 
one page or on one spread? 
These questions are all examples of 
thinking or growing an idea through making. 
They can't be answered without 
externalizing them as visual form. 
By the final iteration, 
there's a more refined sense of pacing and 
sequentiality as well as 
a more developed use of language. 
Some of the spreads reflects the balance 
and harmony we traditionally call beautiful, 
where others challenge and push at those standards. 
The process for designing this type specimen is 
just one example of moving 
ideas forward through making form. 
As you'll see in the coming lessons, 
the ability to clearly articulate and evolve 
ideas is an important part of the critique process. 
The words and form used to 
describe the concepts and intentions behind 
design work are at the heart of 
a meaningful and useful critique.