Seeking to build graphic theory from graphic design research

This chapter explores some of the issues that may contribute to establishing a foundation for graphic design research. The nature of visual images, as discussed in visual culture, is compared with discourse about graphic images in critical theory, leading to an attempt to define the graphic object from a design rather than art perspective. Since then, with the exception of a few projects that acknowledge the ‘formal’ use of research towards graphic designed objects, graphic design and research have been distant entities. Traditionally, industry has required products from graphic design. As a system of representation, graphic design is a system of thought and expression of beliefs that do not exist without visual representation. Graphic design is offered as a genus that groups a diversity of activities that in professional terms have been categorised as “visual elements”, “visual goals” and “effects”. Graphical devices are said to be a third component for theorising, alongside language and mathematics.