Sleep paralysis is a condition in which the REM sleep in an individual fails to disengage after they awaken. This leads to full body paralysis, during which vivid and often terrifying hallucinations occur. I myself suffer from sleep paralysis. That being said, I have always been intrigued by the concept of exploring serious topics through the use of comedy. In essence, that is what my project is about. I wanted to make light of sleep paralysis. By doing so, I hoped to deescalate the terror in the mind of the sufferer. Comedy is possibly the most effective method I have in my arsenal, as I have found that it has helped me to overcome my own issues with the condition. I have attempted to create a source of information for my fellow sufferers that is both informative and non-threateningly simple in its delivery of the information. To summarize, this project was to give people like me something that I never had access to when I first developed the condition and was severely unprepared for dealing with it. I aim to be an artist that is both humorous and helpful in everything that I do, and it is my hope that I was able to succeed in this task.

This research has two primary aims, both of which relate to a study of graphic design methods within the field of popular culture. The first aim is to identify the visual codes which appear in the sleeve designs of a broad selection of UK punk seven inch singles released between 1976 and 1984, and to analyse these in relation to a number of different punk sub-genres and audience groups. Sleeves are mapped stylistically, geographically and chronologically to show the evolution of a range of distinct design strategies and the diasporic effect on the development of punk in the wider regions of the UK. The documentation of these graphic traits reveals the ways in which distinct patterns within punk’s visual language evolved and eventually became entrenched over time. The second aim is the development of a transferable, theoretical and practical method for characterising the formal properties of a range of graphic material. A number of print-based and interactive visual matrices accompany the written thesis, as a key component of the research methodology. In this way, the relationship between graphic design, time and place, and audience is made clear, while the interactive display allows for a more complex range of textual information to be shown, along with the opportunity to review links between sound and visual form. Visual material extended from this research was exhibited successfully in Southampton, London and Blackpool during the spring and summer of 2007, and a number of public talks were given by the author. The major contribution to new knowledge and understanding is in the development of an analytical methodology that has focused on punk graphics but which could be adapted to the study of other graphic artefacts related to visual manifestations of youth culture in the late 20th century and beyond.

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This document is written from the perspective of the Oasis Link community, a group of dissidents who have resettled in the Mojave Desert sometime in the near future. It is a speculative design document. Surface is what is visible. It’s the crust of the earth and the face of a meteorite—the coat of a jackrabbit and the waxy skin of a Mojave Prickly Pear. Surface is superficial, but it also reflects and defines the underlying structure of something—it makes the hidden visible.

Communication design, as a significant tool for sustainable social advocacy, is still under-explored both academically and within creative practices worldwide. In a developing country like Pakistan, the role of social advocacy as an effective tool for social change is ambiguous. This practice-led research aims to redress this imbalance by exploring the development of graphic communication design approaches (GCDs) for social advocacy, in response to a low Pakistani literacy context. The investigation presents a contextually responsive GCD model for design development (Fig3a: 13), as a critical design framework, for synthesising graphic languages in Pakistan. This is presented as an alternative non-traditional communication approach, in response to contextual constraints (socio- cultural, literacy levels and/or available resources) in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The practice asserts contextually driven communication design approaches for sustainability, and it also contests the effectiveness of universal design approaches in culturally diverse contexts. Using a case study approach, a semiotic analysis of three forms of Pakistani graphic media, namely Lollywood billboards, Pakistani truck art and political campaign posters, is undertaken. As a mapping stage, this explores the development of vernacular communication systems and visual codes to advance effective graphic languages in Pakistan, while a simultaneous review of the literature and practice supports the case studies. However, the analysis relies primarily on a pilot study, contextual interviews and collaborative design projects, with Pakistani truck and billboard artists, to identify critical graphic frameworks operative in the Pakistani visual context. This leads ultimately to the final participatory design-led synthesis stage, which co-designs social advocacy interventions in the low- income community of Dhok Chaudrian, Rawalpindi. The interventions address the major issue of open garbage dumps, and the co-design approach highlights the significance of communication design practice evolving as a sustainable social engagement tool in response to a specific issue in a specific context. This thesis is organised in four major sections. Chapter One introduces the research aims, structure and organisation of the thesis. Chapter Two reviews the context and identifies gaps in graphic communication design theory and practice in a social context, before it grounds the research in the Pakistani context. Chapter Three maps the Pakistani visual vernacular through a case study analysis, a pilot study and three collaborative design projects in the cities of Lahore and Rawalpindi. This establishes critical communication design frameworks as a rhetorical design framework (pg. 88) and contextual GCD principles (pg.77) in Pakistan, which are then tested in the proceeding final synthesis stage. Chapter Four entails the design synthesis, which involves testing and evaluating previously developed critical frameworks through co-design sessions in the Dhok Chaudrian community, Rawalpindi. This chapter focuses specifically on community participation as a tool to inform the development of effective graphic languages for design sustainability. Co-design sessions, as an interaction prototype, are evaluated for short-term impacts in terms of engagement, with custom- designed communication tools for a low-literacy target audience. As for resources, this research draws on contextual interviews, collaborative design projects, contextual observations and design evaluations, all of which are supported by published material. The research-led design process is systematically documented as design taxonomy, to be valued as a transferable model of communication design practice. Organisations, artists and designers, with similar research or practical ambitions, can take away the underpinning principles from this research practice and locate them within their own respective practices.

As the modernising Irish state sought to project a positive image of post-war Ireland, a paradox emerged: how could the symbolism of national distinctiveness (heretofore synonymous with the past) be reconciled with modernity? This thesis outlines the role which graphic design played in attempts to resolve tensions between the national and the modern. The thesis examines how design was mobilised as a symbol and agent of modernisation in Ireland in the run-up to and immediate aftermath of the 1958 ‘Programme for Economic Expansion’, widely considered to be the manifestation of an explicit state-led programme of modernisation. It examines the gradual replacement of the outward symbols of Republican Nationalism with a pervasive symbolism of modern efficiency, suggesting that this was a visual manifestation of the drive towards ‘organisation’ and rational management that gripped the civil service. It examines the paradoxical situation whereby designers in Ireland sought to present themselves and the nation as modern and professional, while the Irish Trade Board (charged with both design and export promotion) looked to professional designers abroad to present Ireland and her exports as traditional. Central to this discussion is the critique by designers (particularly those associated with Ireland’s first professional body, the Institute of Creative Advertising and Design) of so-called ‘Stage Irish’ versions of national image-making. An examination of their work and writings provides evidence for a series of alternative visual strategies for being Irish and modern —often quoting Celtic and early-Christian artefacts in otherwise modernist settings— which I have termed ‘Celtic modernism.’ From the early 1950s onwards, debates over ‘tradition’ and ‘modernisation’ were given visible form in the contentious issue of which letterform to use for the Irish language: ‘roman’ or ‘Gaelic’. This culminated in 1965 in the decommissioning of the Irish alphabet – at which point typography, that most everyday and habitually overlooked of visual material, became briefly visible and highly charged. The final section of the thesis focuses on the relationship between language, typography and identity. It argues that the debates about language reform in the mid twentieth- century led to a reconsideration of the variety of ways of ‘being Irish’ typographically and that the ‘Celtic’ associations of the uncial letter in particular offered potential for the negotiation of tradition and modernity. The thesis concludes that design in Ireland was presented as a means and a metaphor of modernisation. It attempts through an examination of a range of design examples, to follow Roland Barthes’s injunction to ‘track down in the decorative display of what- goes-without-saying’ the ideological constructions hidden in plain sight.

This practice-led research is the result of an interest in graphic design as a specific critical activity. Existing in the context of the 2008 financial and subsequent political crisis, both this thesis and my work are situated in an expaded field of graphic design. This research examines the emergence of the terms critical design and critical practice,and aims to develop methods that use criticism during the design process from a practitioner’s perspective. Central aims of this research are to address a gap in design discourse in relation to this terminology and impact designers operating under the banner of such terms, as well as challenging practitioners to develop a more critical design practice. The central argument of this thesis is that in order to develop a critical practice, a designer must approach design as criticism. Adopting a mixed methods approach to research, this thesis draws on 'action research'(Schön, 1983) and is aligned with the proposition of ‘problem setting’ instead of the established ‘problem solving’ approach to design, using the following methods: 1)workshops at the Royal College of Art, Sandberg Institute, University of Westminster and London College of Communication; 2) selection of projects from professional practice; 3) self-initiated research projects; 4) critical writing, including essays, reviews,interviews and in particular the publication 'Modes of Criticism'. Following the theorisation of the terms critical design and critical practice, historical survey of criticism, politics and ideology in relation to graphic design, and reflection on the workshops and methods detailed above, this thesis proposes a critical method consisting of three dimensions: visual criticality, critical reflexivity and design fiction. It argues that criticism as design method offers a fundamental opportunity to develop a reflected and critical approach to design, and more importantly, society. This method creates opportunities to develop a critical practice; one that shapes a continuous agency and interest in wicked, systemic and infrastructural problems with a constant ability to critically adapt and research their multi-layered nature. That will on the one hand help the designer to become a substantial agent of change and on the other, in particularly difficult circumstances of conflicted personal, private, disciplinary and public interest such as commercial practice, to find opportunities for criticality.

Graphic design holds a marginal position in the Italian design historiography in relation to industrial design. Often written by and for graphic designers, histories have tended to concentrate on changes in graphic styles as exemplified in works by prominent designers or the visual communication strategies of major companies. By contrast, this thesis addresses the organisation of the graphic design profession in Milan, from the interwar period to the mid-1960s. Key aspects explored include: graphic design’s mutable meanings and practices; formal and informal educational practices; graphic designers’self-identification with a new profession; and the structures they created to organise and make their practice visible. A focus on dialogue and negotiation between different interest groups stresses the relational and contingent nature of design professions. The thesis asks whether Milan’s graphic practitioners capitalised on modernist ideas such as standardisation, universalism, objectivity and functionalism to distance themselves from graphic arts and advertising, and enable re-categorisation within design. Thus, it problematises the relationship between professionalisation and international modernism, within the specific context of industrial structures in Milan and the hierarchy of design practice in twentieth-century Italy more broadly. The thesis provides an original retelling of stories often taken for granted, and looks behind individual designers and big companies to uncover overlooked narratives. Five chapters addressing the Scuola del Libro and the Cooperativa Rinascita in Milan, the ISIA in Monza, the Milan Triennale, the Studio Boggeri and the associations AIAP and ADI draw attention to educational issues, design practice, professional organisations, networks and mediating channels that have defined, legitimised, represented, advanced, contrasted, and articulated the graphic design profession in Milan. The argument is built on close scrutiny of archival material and other primary sources, including extensive visual material and oral interviews. Methodologies derive principally from history of design and visual culture, and place great emphasis on visual analysis. Visual artefacts are approached both as visual expressions of design methodologies and aesthetic principles and, drawing on actor-network-theory, as three-dimensional actors that interact with people and other artefacts. Despite focusing on the local, the thesis draws on global design history as a methodology by taking into account the dynamic and multi-directional movement of people, ideas, and artefacts within transnational circuits. Building on sociological stances, it approaches professions as socially constructed concepts and argues that professional identities are constantly in formation and require continual adaptation to shifting environments, agendas and design discourses. The thesis aims to offer neither a comprehensive history of Italian graphic design nor a final assessment of its professionalisation. Rather, it prioritises the process of professionalisation, by stressing tensions and contradictions, and by following practitioners’ struggle to articulate what graphic design is. The originality and potential impact of the thesis lie in its endeavour to present a closely-articulated history of the graphic design profession in Milan that draws attention to economic, industrial, political, social and technological contexts, and to propose this as a template for the writing of graphic design history. Furthermore, it provides a historically-integrated, archive-based, outward-looking model for graphic design history as an integral part of the history of design.

A comprehensive study in the processes of animation in various forms, from concept to simple layout animation to complex overlapping action and splining, and even lighting and texturing, I will be using a popular podcast musical as a basis to study the pipeline that’s used to create an industry animation.