Realising the geo/graphic landscape of the everyday, 2007 on

The title of my PhD—abstract as it stands at the moment is as follows...

This cross-disciplinary, practice-led research centres on the geographic visualisation of urban space and the possibilities print based graphic design and typography could bring to that process. Perkins (2006:np) notes that currently geographers are ‘very good at deconstruction, not so good at construction’, as they fear print defines place in a ‘fixed’, one-dimensional manner. This research asserts that print offers the potential to produce artefacts that offer the reader an interactive, multi-linear and ‘peopled’ experience of place that goes beyond the flat, geometric space of the map. In the context of this research, place is defined and explored using Massey’s (1994, 2005) idea of place as process, and Tuan’s (1977) contrasting notion of place as pause.

A qualitative, naturalistic and reflective methodological approach will be taken, drawing on both social science methods and design practice—an approach that could be described as that of the bricoleur (Denzin and Lincoln (1994:2). This will form the framework for the development of a ‘geo/graphic’ design process. Ethnographic research methods of participant observation and cultural probes will generate content from the London Borough of Hackney—chosen as a testing ground due to its complexity and contrasting juxtapositions. These findings will be used as both content and inspiration with regard to design projects that will test and further develop the geo/graphic design process. Drawing on Ingold (2007) and Mermoz (1998 on), the practice will engage beyond the ‘surface’ of the page, at the ‘level of the text’. The evaluation and development of the design practice will be underpinned by Schön’s notion of the reflective practitioner.

This new synthesis of theory and practice from both graphic design and cultural geography, resulting in the development of the geo/graphic design process, positions the representation of space not as a by-product of science, but as a process itself.

Key words
Graphic design, typography, cultural geography, sense of place, ethnography, cultural probes, reflective practitioner, geo/graphic design process.

Clearly this will refine and develop further...