741.6092

Visualising the canon in Graphic Design

741.6092 is an ongoing project run with Graphic Design students. It explores a single sections of the UAL Library related to ‘Graphic Designers.’

When we look at a library collection we find more than books. We find a physical manifestation of the politics of knowledge. From the physical books on the shelves all the way back to the policies that secured the purchase of those books, we find processes of criteria, classification and therefore, power. The limited data contained in library catalogues can obscure more than it reveals. It is particularly limited in what it can tell us about the people, ideas and practices contained in collections.

In this project students counter-map some of this ‘missing data’ on gender, place of birth and practice of the designers represented in the books of these sections. Through physical and/or digital mapping we can began to discuss the knowledge the collection represents by making it something visible. Wall sized diagrams and collective Miro mapping have allowed different groups of students to interrogate the assumptions, privileges and knowledge that underpin disciplinary thinking in Graphic Design. Allowing us to talk about classification and it’s relationship to oppression and through an intersectional lens.

 

Workshop records

Chelsea College of Arts 2020

research outputs

Knight, Laura, H (2021) 741.6092: Visualising the Canon in Graphic Design. In: CHASE Feminist Network Conference, 26-27 February 2021, University of East Anglia.

 

Central Saint Martins 2022

150 students mapped data from sections 741.6092 and 741.612.

 

Run this workshop

This workshop and its methodology is open to any design educator to run. It can be tailored to any discipline. If you’re interested in running it, please get in touch, I’d be happy to discuss it with you.

 

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