I posed some questions in the graphic design forums in order to get a wider context for my work. At this point I am unsure how responsive the forum will be to deeper question on graphic design criticism, so I wanted to activate a an open discourse in order to understand what tone was appropriate for the forum. Ideally it would be good to get some view points regarding the authorship theories that will be used extensively in my essay, but due to the nature of the topic, there may be some uncertainty as to what it is, and this would not generate responses.
I started my inquiry with a rather broad question in the hope to bring the conversation in. I asked who does self set projects, and what their motivations are. While this is very broad, it may give me some answers that I can analyse in reference to the authorship theories put forward by Almeida & McCarthy (2002).
The first forum gained a few responses that I was able to take something from. One of the responses was from the owner and created of The Print Handbook. I bought a copy of this book last year for the Design Production module, and I was surprised to be in touch with the creator. As I had hoped, this has provided me with a precedent for the Almeida and McCarthy model ‘Entrepreneurial Opportunities’. The response in the forum also alluded to this idea. The creator, as a designer found a gap in the market for a product, and then created that product, generating the content and producing the outcome. It is valuable to get precedents that reinforce these models, as it gives them more resonance in my understanding of the research.
Responses from other forums were good in terms of highlighting problems with self-set projects, and also highlighting the benefits. Many of the responses, unlike other projects I have mentioned on my blog, are purely for the self and do not seem to involve a wider audience/contributors of the design sphere. These are not really the type of self-set projects I am interested in as they have an insular take on the potential of these projects. While I fully endorse doing these types of projects for the self, as they may be useful for learning new things or promoting oneself, I am interested in how these projects can progress the profession of graphic design, and expand its boundaries academically, socially, and culturally.
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