Se och synas är ett examensarbete i informationsdesign med inriktning mot textdesign. Syftet med detta arbete är att synliggöra förbättringsarbeten på företag med lean-produktion. Examensarbetet ingår i ett större forskningsprojekt, Integrering av innovationsorienterat arbete i lean-produktionssystem, ett samarbete mellan forskare på Mälardalens högskola och olika fallföretag där Eskilstuna ElektronikPartner AB är en av dessa företag. Arbetet strävar efter att ta fram ett designförslag som ska få målgruppen att tänka på förbättringar genom att synliggöra förbättringsarbeten. Målet är att få målgruppen att se och synas, det vill säga se förbättringar och visa upp förbättringsarbeten genom att synas. Under inhämtningen av empirin från observationer, intervjuer och fokusgrupp visade det sig att målgruppen genomför många förbättringar som inte synliggörs och att de önskade mer företagsinformation. Inläsningen av teorier och litteratur kring kognitiv psykologi, stilmarkörer i text, riktlinjer för lättläst text och principer för layout och grafisk form gav mig kunskap om hur information kan utformas på digitala storbildsskärmar. Text och grafik måste vara tydligt utformade. Genom stilmarkörer i språket, lättskrivna texter och hierarkier i grafisk form görs informationen läslig och lätt att förstå. Utifrån empiri och teori har ett gestaltningsförslag tagits fram som synliggör förbättringsarbeten på företag med lean-produktion. Gestaltningen utgår från målgruppens åsikter och består av ett handlingsmönster där förbättringsarbetet synliggörs både muntligt och skriftligt. Gestaltningen består också av en fysisk artefakt där information kring förbättringsarbeten visas på digitala storbildsskärmar. / To see and be seen is a thesis in information design with emphasis on text design. The aim of this thesis is to visualiz improvement in companies with lean production. This thesis is a part of a reseach about embedding innovation-oriented work within lean-production systems. This reseach i based on cooperations between reseachers at Mälardalens högskola and different business cases. On of these business cases is Eskilstuna ElektronikPartner AB. This theses aims to develop a designproposal that will get the target group to consider improvements by visualizing improvements. The goal is to get the target group to see and be seen , that is to see improvement and demonstrate improvement by appearing. From the result of empirical data gathered from observations, interviews and focusgroups has shown that the target group implements many improvements that are not made ​​visible and that they wanted more company information. The conclusion of theories about cognitive psychology, style markers in text, guidelines for readable text and principles of layout and graphic design, gave me knowledge of how information can be designed in digital large screens. Text and graphic design must be clear. Through style markers in text, easily written texts and hierarchies in graphical form, information can be made legible and easy to understand. Based on the empirical work and the theories a design proposal has been developed that visualiz improvements in companies with lean production. The design is based on the opinions of the target group and consists of a pattern of behavior where improvement efforts are made visible both orally and in writing. The design also consists of a physical artifact, where information about the improvement is shown on digital large screens. / Integrering av innovationsorienterat arbete i lean-produktionssystem

Syftet med föreliggande studie har varit att kartlägga hur grafiska formgivare runt om i världen uppfattar skandinavisk grafisk design. 53 deltagare från industriländer deltog i studien som använde en kombination av mail-intervjuer och enkäter. Resultaten från denna studie indikerar att, oavsett kontinent, upplevs skandinavisk grafisk design som enkel och funktionell. Layouten uppfattades som rutnätsbaserad med mycket ljusrum och få grafiska element. Monokroma färger som svart, vit och grå utan gradienter och skuggor uppfattades som typiska för skandinavisk grafisk design; följt av jord- och pastellfärger. Sanserifer var mest förknippade med skandinavisk grafisk design. Motiv ansågs i denna studie att användas sparsamt, men när de används avbildar de naturen eller geometriska former. Foton och illustrationer ansågs användas ungefär lika mycket, illustrationer hade en smärre större preferens. Den upplevda påverkan av skandinavisk grafisk design varierade mellan deltagarna. Deltagarna som tyckte att påverkan var stor, ansåg att detta berodde på förespråkandet av enkelhet och funktion, sammanflätning av designområden och/eller frammaning av hållbar grafisk design. Deltagarna som ansåg att påverkan var låg, tyckte att för lite publicitet var en bidragande faktor.De flesta deltagarna i denna undersökning ansåg att skandinavisk grafisk design var enklare i jämförelse med vad de kunde se i sina hemländer. Vidare tyckte afrikanska, asiatiska och sydamerikanska deltagare  att färgerna hade lägre kroma. / The aim of the present study was to determine how graphic designers around the globe perceive Scandinavian graphic design. 53 participants from industrial countries around the world partook in the study, which used a combination method of mail interviews and questionnaires.The results of this study indicated that, regardless of continent, Scandinavian graphic design was perceived as simple and functional. The often grid-based layout favored the use of sans-serifs, white space and few graphic elements according to the participants in this study. Achromatic colors such as black, white, and grey without gradients and shadows were preferred. Followed by earthy and pastel hues. Motifs were used sparingly, but when they were, they depicted elements found in nature or geometric shapes. Photos and illustrations were perceived to be equally in use, with a slight inclination towards illustrations being used more. The perceived impact of Scandinavian graphic design was wide-ranging. The participants who found the impact to be high were due to advocating simplicity and functionality, intertwining design fields, and/or raising awareness of conscious graphic design. The participants, who found the impact to be low, believed that too little exposure was a contributing factor. Most participants in this study considered Scandinavian graphic design simpler in comparison to what they can see in their own countries. Furthermore, African, Asian and South American participants perceived the colors to be lower in chromatic value.

<p>The interest for food and cooking has probably never engaged the people of Sweden as much as it does today. Especially cookbooks are selling better than ever which has been a quite constant trend since the mid 90's. This study explores the connection between visual communication in Swedish cookbooks and the post-modern values which have influenced the market climate and the visual culture. I have used a theoretical framework as reference consisting of theories of semiotics, visual rhetoric, marketing communications and postmodernism. I have been studying six cookbooks, three from the late 00's and three from the early 90's, from the two separate angles of their graphic design and photographic material. The survey has been conducted by using both qualitative and quantitative methods to make it possible to both gather information about the impression of the visual communication as well as statistics of space given to text and images as well as main motives in the photography. In my essay I discuss the meaning of the differences between the cooking books of the separate time periods along with the above mentioned angles with the theoretical framework in mind. I also discuss the question about what in fact makes a cooking book have costumer value. As a conclusion I state that cookbooks by updating their image of what a cookbook is supposed to be, succeeded to reach new markets with post-modern influenced preferences by making cooking part of an experience in the mind of the consumer.</p>

The significant role of the female printer in the American home-based print shops during the colonial and early republic periods has been documented in print history, socioeconomic, labor, and women studies, yet with the industrialization of the printing trade, women’s presence is thought to have disappeared. Contrary to the belief that industrialization of the print shop eradicated women’s involvement in skilled employments such as typesetting, the creation of the Women’s Cooperative Printing Union in California and the creation and chartering of the Women’s Typographical Union in New York, both in the late 1860s, clearly indicate that women continued to work in printing. The assumption that industrialization brought with it the unionization of the trade denies the possibility of non-union shops, as well as the continuation of home-based businesses across the ever-expanding nation as it moved westward. This research has sought to uncover and restore to history women who have been involved in the trade from the early transition of the home shop at the beginning of the 1800s to the signing of the WTU charter in 1869 by union employed compositors, as well as to identify establishments that hired female compositors. Digital newspaper databases have been used as a means of locating both women and opportunities available to them in the American printing trade between 1800 to 1869. Several women significant to this history, both those who have been found to be employed as compositors/typesetters and those who created opportunities for the employment of trained women compositors/typesetters, are discussed.

Les organisations qui s’engagent dans une démarche de responsabilité sociale sont appelées à mieux prendre en considération les impacts environnementaux, sociaux et économiques de leurs activités et à communiquer publiquement les engagements qu’il prennent. Ces engagements sont véhiculés à travers différents médias réalisés par un designer graphique. Comme les notions de responsabilité sociale sont complexes et les engagements uniques à chaque organisation, le designer doit s’assurer de bien comprendre le message à transmettre pour rendre les médias cohérents autant dans leur forme que dans leur contenu. Pour aider le designer à répondre à ce défi, une démarche participative, qui vise la collaboration entre les parties prenantes en amont du processus, a été testée dans le cadre de cette recherche. Elle consistait à observer et à documenter, en contexte de pratique réel, comment une démarche participative pouvait soutenir la communication graphique de la responsabilité sociale d’une organisation. La création de l’identité visuelle et des médias de l’Institut de l’environnement, du développement durable et de l’économie circulaire a été choisi comme cas d’étude. Suivant une méthodologie inspirée de la recherche-action, nous avons pu identifier et valider les freins et les leviers de la démarche avec les participants. Les résultats obtenus soulignent l’apport positif de la démarche au processus de conception. Elle a permis aux parties prenantes de visualiser collectivement les valeurs de RS à communiquer grâce à un partage de connaissances. De plus, le processus itératif et participatif a facilité l’appropriation du projet par l’organisation. Le manque de temps, de ressources humaines et de ressources économiques constituent les principaux freins au maintien de la démarche au-delà de l’étape d’idéation et de rétroaction. L’analyse des données recueillies a permis de formuler des recommandations en vue d’améliorer la démarche pour en favoriser l’usage auprès de la communauté de pratique du design graphique et des organisations qui recourent à ses services pour communiquer leur responsabilité sociale. / Organizations are increasingly choosing to implement corporate social responsibility in their activities. To do so, they are invited to consider the environmental, social and economic impacts of their activities and decisions and, consequently, share it with their stakeholders. These commitments are conveyed to the audience through different medias created by a graphic designer. Since corporate social responsibility knowledge is complex and unique to each organization, the designer has to carefully understand the organization’s message in order to create medias that are consistent in their form and content. To help the graphic designer respond to this challenge, a participative approach was tested through this research. The objective was to observe and document, while collaborating with a group of stakeholders, on a graphic design project and understand how a participative approach can support the graphic communication of an organization’s corporate social responsibility. The graphic design of the corporate identity and the medias of EDDEC Institute of environment, sustainable development and circular economy was selected to conduct this research. A methodology, inspired by action-research, was chosen to identify, with the project’s stakeholders, the brakes and levers of the approach. The results are confirming the general benefits of the participative approach to the creative process. Stakeholders were able to share and visualize their understanding of the organization’s corporate social responsibility. The iterative process, which is part of the approach, also helped the appropriation of the corporate identity by the organization’s stakeholders. Despite these positive aspects, limitations due to short delays and insufficient human and financial resources were major constraints in supporting the participative approach during the entire process. Recommendations towards the improvement of this participative approach were then formulated for its eventual usage by the graphic design community and its clients, in order to communicate their corporate social responsibility.

This project report offers insight into my research, creative process and work during my two-year Master in visual communication at Konstfack, Stockholm.Clean: Not the Monochrome, Universal and Neutral Modernism You Expect is the published culmination of a period of visual research highlighting Modernism — Modernist (graphic) design and architecture to be precise — as a power structure by uncovering its connections to colonialism and design authoritarianism through misperception, whiteness, exclusive practicing and imposition.The book uses intersections of visual material, personal experience and theory to deconstruct the inheritance of the creative practitioner working in the realm of Modernism as well as its presumed neutrality.

In a prospective post-work society, a select group of citizens participate in a cross-temporal project. As we follow along their journeys, questions arise. How does time move when it is no longer a commodity? What is design in the age of rampant robotics? How do we define creativity? What is wasted potential, and is it possible to be a failure? Most importantly, can fiction teach us anything about reality?

My research is about stereotypes of women. Responding to scepticism towardsfeminist movements, my degree project aims to challenge the power structure of today’s Western society. How does visual communication play a big role in creating and/or reproducing inequalities? I have created a retro-futuristic exhibition, placed in an imaginary museum. In a utopian world based in 2050, the exhibition femme: extinct stereotypes, aims to show, explain and deconstruct how women were portrayed around 2020; how society and (pop)culture were deforming humans into stereotypical women.I have created a speculative scenario through different objects and artifacts displaying the expectations and instructions on how women should or should not behave. By showcasing the past and its conventions, this retro-futuristic exhibition questions their normality and rationality.

This thesis is a profoundly personal one. It examines the role of context in creation (authorship) and perception (reading an image) of representation. Born in Sri Lanka during the emergence of one the world's longest lasting civil wars, I never recognized my love and concern for the Island and its ancient history and culture until I traveled to America to pursue a higher education. Ever since, I have constantly found myself in situations where I am regarded as the 'other' or the 'outsider' ; I seem to not fit in completely in this country as well as in my own. In the US I am considered 'eastern' or 'exotic', whereas in my own country, I am considered 'westernized', no longer looked at as a typical Sri Lankan woman. This thesis examines and explores marginalization, orientalism, deconstruction theories, semiotic studies, dialect as well as attire, in the specific context of Graphic Design. / by Fathima Asma Nazim. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Com base em um referencial teórico que incluiu a história da arte e do design, a semiótica e estu-dos da cor na cultura, esta tese defende a ideia de cor como linguagem e construção cultural, observando seu uso em diferentes sistemas de significação, no design e, especialmente, no design de embalagens. O trabalho parte da evolução da linguagem visual da embalagem, observada en-tre o final do século XIX e o início do século XXI, expondo as mudanças ocorridas no design como expressão dos diferentes momentos da sociedade e da cultura visual ocidental, e resgatando a importância histórica das cores para a comunicação. Num segundo momento revisam-se funda-mentos da semiótica, transpondo-os para a abordagem da cor como signo e para a investigação da linguagem cromática como um sistema. Para explicitar os princípios estruturais dessa lingua-gem, os significados atribuídos às cores e aos atributos cromáticos são revisados por meio de pesquisa bibliográfica. Através de estudo empírico, esta tese examina a linguagem cromática do design de embalagens contemporâneo, a partir de um corpus de embalagens de alimentos co-mercializados no Brasil. Os resultados mostraram que o sistema de significados da cor no design de embalagens se apoia tanto nos campos associativos gerados pelos atributos de matiz, clarida-de e saturação das cores, quanto nas oposições cromáticas e semânticas que tais características criam. A abordagem do estudo foi além da análise estrutural, envolvendo simultaneamente aspec-tos sintáticos, semânticos e pragmáticos da cor, buscando explicitar sua utilização como instru-mento para a difusão de ideias e valores. Foi observado que as cores assumem funções visuais, icônicas, indiciais e simbólicas na comunicação da embalagem. No nível simbólico, os sentidos mais frequentes assumidos pelas cores corresponderam a diferentes discursos que orientam as práticas alimentares contemporâneas. A pesquisa mostrou que o design dialoga com outros sis-temas de significação e resgata, difunde e reelabora o simbolismo das cores para construir ima-gens de qualidade, pureza, bem-estar, saúde, ecologia e feminilidade, entre outras, refletindo concepções ideológicas e culturais que têm lugar na vida contemporânea. / Based on a theoretical referential which included art and design history, semiotics and cultural studies of color, this thesis supports the idea of color as language and cultural construction, observing its use in different systems of signification, in design and, particularly, in packaging design. The work starts from the evolution of visual language of packaging, observed between late 19th century and early 21st century, showing the changes occurred in design as an expression of the different moments of western society and visual culture, and bringing back the historical importance of colors in communication. Secondly, the work reviews the fundamentals of semiotics, transposing them to the approach of the color as a sign, and to the investigation of color language as a system. In order to explain the structural principles of this language, the meanings of colors and chromatic attributes are reviewed through bibliographical research. Through an empirical study, this thesis examines the chromatic language of contemporary packaging design, from a corpus of food packaging commercialized in Brazil. The results showed that the system of significations of color in packaging design leans both on the associative fields generated by the attributes of color -- hue, brightness and saturation -- and on the chromatic and semantic oppositions that such characteristics create. The study approach went beyond the structural analysis, involving simultaneously syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects of color, trying to explain its use as a tool for the diffusion of ideas and values. It was observed that the colors assume visual, iconic, indexical and symbolic functions in the packaging communication. In the symbolic level, the most frequent senses assumed by the colors corresponded to different discourses which guide the contemporary food practices. The research showed that design communicates with other systems of signification and rescues, spreads out and reconstructs the color symbolism to construct images of quality, pureness, welfare, health, ecology and femininity, among others, reflecting ideological and cultural conceptions which have their place in contemporary life.