The Visual Thesis, the development of new visual hybrid languages
At the Utrecht school of the Arts, the discipline of graphic design has developed a new genre The Visual Thesis. This genre replaces the traditional thesis and as a form of media remixability (Manovich 2006). It allows students to use all kind of representative and communicative strategies to make an argument. Text becomes texture (Kress 2000).
The Visual Thesis is based upon design research and as a representation of the research practice it is linked with the design project in the form of a convincing argument. Its aim is to show a personal point of view concerning a theme or a social reality through research. The Visual Thesis is as well a content driven argument as a visual design. So its evaluative criteria stem from design and from theory. The visual Thesis should be meaningful.
The Visual Thesis also has a younger brother called the visual essay. The visual essay is a debriefing document in which the designer addresses the client. In the visual essay the research is presented as a convincing argument for a design solution. The difference between the visual essay and the visual thesis depends upon the impact of the research, which is in the visual thesis more comprehensive and more thorough than the visual essay. It also depends upon the relation between design outcome and visual document. In the visual thesis students have the freedom to define that relation, and to create a visual form and structure, which comes out of the relation.
CRITERIA for the Visual Thesis.
- VT has a convincing argumentation or multilayered perspectives
- VT has a clear objective and clear relation with design project
- VT is based on thoroughly and broad research of different textual and visual sources
- VT is the visible result of several ways of doing research (Coumans 2005)
- VT keeps the reader interested through visual form, structure en arguments
- VT shows in words, images and form the relevance of a subject
- VT uses a content driven use of typography
- VT uses a content driven use of form
- VT shows the ability of the designer to integrate text and image to create meaning
- VT shows the ability of the design student to bring hierarchie and layers in the information.
- VT makes visual clear how textgenres and visual genres are intermingled
- VT is clear about different perspectives (who does the talking)
- VT places itself in an intertextual context (texture) by showing the sources
LiteratureCoumans, A. (2004). The Visual Essay, reflexivity in the design proces. Coumans, A. & H. Westgeest. De Reflexieve Zone. Utrecht: HKU
Coumans, A. (2005) “Muscular Design, Practice Based Research in visual art and design education”, iadade da Imagem magazine 2005
Kress, G. (2000). Text as the punctuation of semiosis: pulling at some of the threads. Intertextuality and the media,ed. by Ulrike. H.Meihnof & Jonathan Smith, Menchaster University Press
Manovich, L. 2006. After Effects, or Velvet Revolution in Modern Culture. Part 1. http://www.manovich.net/
Wood, J. The culture of academic rigour: does design research really need it? Design Cultures conference, Sheffield University, march0april 1999
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