Universitylevel graphic design education in the United States continues to struggle with the question of what academic designation should constitute the terminal degree: the mfA, or a doctoral degree such as a Ph.D., or a professional doctorate. In light of this question, the study described in this article has two primary goals: first, to gauge the contributions of graphic design educators to the scholarly literature that contextualizes the relationship between the design disciplines and doctoral education, and second, to critically review a broad cross section of the indexed scholarly literature on this subject. The results of this study reveal that the number of ac ademics and professionals working in graphic design who have made significant contributions to this literature is negligible. This stands in sharp contrast to the comparatively higher number of academics and professionals working in architectural, industrial, product, and interior design, as well as the fine visual arts. This study argues that universitylevel graphic design educators -who are by definition members of the academy -should be familiar with the existing literature on this subject since it affects the academic standards that frame and guide their career achievement metrics and accreditation. In conclusion, this study calls for universitylevel graphic design educa tors to engage more fully in the continuing, inter and transdisciplinary conversations about doc toral education in design so that they might improve their abilities to contribute to the domains of knowledge that inform university communities, and, in so doing, advance their careers as they improve their students' learning.
In this article, the history of visual communication design provides an area of thematic convergence. The research represented here engages typographic communication, an area of investigation familiar to the journal's readership. Yet its significance extends beyond illuminating the historical context of singular designs or designers. Collectively, the authors in this issue join a broader and sustained interdisciplinary conversation between design history and visual communication design practice. Situating their research relative to this shared context expands its relevance beyond their discrete areas of focus. At its inception, the history of visual communication design relied on the intuition of practitioners and the connoisseurship of collectors; its narrative prioritized aesthetic styles and eminent designers. The first sustained calls to move beyond such a conceptualization emerged in 1983 at Coming of Age: The First Symposium on the History of Graphic Design.
This essay re-reads Margaret E. Dorsey and Miguel Diaz-Barriga’s “Beyond surveillance and moonscapes: An alternative imaginary of the U.S.–Mexico border wall” (2010) from the position of a design educator engaged with horizontal co-design methods for social and disciplinary change. The essay brings Dorsey and Diaz-Barriga’s ideas into conversation with a selection of relevant visual communication design outcomes and scholarship produced around the same time. It then rereads the value of that transdisciplinary conversation from within the present moment—one complicated, morally charged, and visually saturated by domestic immigration policy.
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