After opening the first page I
immediately knew that this book was going to interest me. Throughout the pages of Ellen Lupton’s Graphic Design Thinking: Beyond
Brainstorming, I was constantly intrigued by the approach she took to
create this book and felt that I actually took a lot from it. Right on the first page lays a map of
“The Design Process” starting with brainstorming and leading its way to
mockups. The way the Lupton incorporated text and visuals into this book really
made me want to see what she had to say instead of making me feel as if I am
forced to read it, like so many other books make me feel.
What truly resonated with me throughout
the reading was the Mind Mapping.
Lupton explains mind mapping as “A form of mental research that allows designers
to quickly explore the scope of a given problem, topic, or subject area” (22).
It is something that I have personally never taken the time to create, but
something that I also think would be extremely beneficial in the design
process. By taking the time to get
all of my thoughts down on paper I feel that I would be able to create a
substantially better piece of work because my thoughts would be more planned
out and organized, rather than scattered in my head. In addition, I appreciated that not only was there a
description of Mind Mapping, but also a how-to guide to help the reader along
throughout the process.
The Visual Research was another
approach that I was very interested in.
We live in a society where advertisements and visual aids are constantly
being thrown in our faces, so I think it makes sense that when faced with a
problem, using visual research would be a good solution.
I truly enjoyed reading the
different ways to define a problem and feel that all of these would be
beneficial when faced with issues during the early stages of the design
process.
I think that mind mapping and other outlining strategies are useful when designing in a group or for a client. I feel like because a lot of us haven't experienced working for other people yet, we haven't thought to put our designs down on paper before thinking about them artistically. I agree that visual research is an interesting approach. I liked how the textbook was modern enough to include new ways of designing that use every day situations, which visual research would definitely help.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point about how we are constantly bombarded with advertisements. Logos and taglines are presented to us in a rapid manner and the physical mapping of all the information would definitely be beneficial in organizing all the chaos. I feel that Visual Research was also one of the approaches to the creative process that many of us were probably not familiar with because as young designers we have not yet been exposed to the many avenues of brainstorming. However, after reading the first chapter I already feel more equipped to face the beginning stages of the design process.
ReplyDeleteThe mind mapping technique is difinitely the most helpful. I also found it interesting how Lupton described that there is a significant distinction between mind mapping and brainstorming. The combination of text and visuals (design examples) also made this chapter easier to follow because I was able to understand how the methods were executed.
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