Figure 3.
Final Product in Square Format

REFINING THE CONCEPT// The main headlines of pleasure and
pain were divided into sections that facilitated the organization
of content along cultural reference points. For instance, pain was
divided into war, discrimination and social control while pleas-
ure was divided into inspiration, lifestyle and culture. Although
contextual content was generated as a class, considerable editorial
material added another layer of interest to engage the user in the
human aspects of design. Editorial offered analogies that related
design to subjects outside of the discipline. The emphasis was to
move away from relying on the informed eye of those with “prac-
tical experience of spatial forms” towards those with more tacit
knowledge of “conventional literate forms” (Swann, 2002).

PRECEDENTS, USERS AND CONTENT AS DICTATORS OF
FORM// From the outset the class was discouraged from assum-
ing the product’s final form. As such, the concept of Pleasure
and Pain was chosen before the idea of a book was determined.
As part of the brief, the final form needed to support the concept
and respond to the way the user was intended to interact with the
content. The final product was not confined to being a static
piece of design; it could have taken the form of a website, motion
graphic, poster, pamphlet, etc.

The decision to use the form of a book was primarily based
on users. A static form of design enabled a certain amount of
control in terms of how the user navigated through the images
and saw them in relation to the text and categories. Further
to this, it was considered that a book could more fully support
oppositional sides and the broad categories of pleasure and pain.
Various formats and prototypes of the book were circulated to a
small survey group of non-designers to gauge reactions. In the
end, the popular choice was a square format (Fig. 2). This format
again supported the concept of expressing sides or poles whilst
also removing it further from resembling a ‘textbook’. Debark-
ing further from the art history model, dates and artists receded
as secondary pieces of information through typographic choices
and layouts. Exploring how a static piece of design could support a
non-linear flow of information whilst imparting extensive historic
information was a compelling challenge.

REFLECTION// This journal article is not a defense of a second
year level design project’s ability to rival some of its undoubtedly
more comprehensive precedents. As an excerpt from the introduc-
tion of the book sets out:

14. CURRENT

“For someone interested in design [...] there are a plethora of
relevant books out there. [...] This book will not serve those who
are interested in gaining practical skills in graphic design or those
seeking to learn details about its broad history. This book offers
those interested in design a novel way to consider [...] the function
of design over time” (Guimond, 2008).

Like any other undergraduate design project, there are elements
that could be improved given more time and research. Upon ref-
lection the main failure of the book is that, despite best efforts
and intent, it continued to appropriate an art history approach to
design by over emphasizing the emotional impact of the design
pieces instead of focusing on their performative role. This could
perhaps have been improved with more extensive user-group sur-
veys and comparative literature research.

CONCLUSION// In Basic Concepts of Human-Centered Design,
Krippendorff discusses a discrepancy in the perception of design
between “outsiders who see design as an applied art having to
do with aesthetics” and “insiders to design [considering them-
selves] advocates for users, and trying to balance social, political,
cultural and ecological considerations” (Krippendorff, 2006).
This disparity was one of the key learning outcomes of this
project. Increasingly in design discourse and teaching there is an
emphasis on user-centered design and the importance of involv-
ing non-designers in the design process. However, the majority
of literature on design, particularly that relating to its history,
reinforces the outsiders’ perspective making it largely unappr-
oachable to the uninitiated. The intention for the book was to
challenge the popular view of design as applied art and in doing
so encourage a relational understanding of design as a primarily
cultural activity. +

REFERENCES//
1. Eskilson, S.J. (2007). Graphic Design: A New History. New Haven CT:
Yale University Press, 10.

2. Frascara. J. (1996). Graphic Design: Fine Art or Social Science. In Vic-
tor Margolin & Richard Buchanan (Eds.), The Idea of Design: a Design
Issues Reader. London & Cambridge: MIT Press, 44-55.

3. Gerber, A., and Triggs, T. (2007). Comment. Retrieved November 27,
2009, from http://Icc.arts.ac.uk/ docs/o80_BLUEPRINT_OCTOBER.pdf

4. Krippendorff, K. (2006). Basic Concepts of Human- Centered Design.
The Semantic Turn: A New Foundation for Design. Boca Raton: Taylor &
Francis Group, 39-75.

5. Margolin. V. (2000). Toward a History of Graphic Design (Interview).
Retrieved December 5, 2009, from http://tigger.uic.edu/~victor/articles/
interview.pdf

6. Guimond, M., Prakash, N., and Tsang, K. (2008). Pleasure and Pain: 70
Years of Graphic Design. Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

7. Swann, C. (2002). Action Research and the Practice of Design. Design
Issues, 18(2), 49-61.

8. Wilkins, B. (2001). Design History’s Obsession with Appearance: No More
Heroes. Retrieved November 20, 2009 from http://eyemagazine.com/
opinion. php?id=35&o0id=175

IMAGE REFERENCES//
Fig. 1. Guimond, M. (2008).

Fig 2. Guimond, M. (2008).
Fig 3. Guimond, M. (2008).
Fig 4. Guimond, M. (2008).