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.

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.

This research comprises interrelated elements of video works and a thesis. The philosophy and aesthetics of nature are explored through light and motion in the time- based image. Framed within selected aspects of G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophy, I explore digital aesthetics, nature and dialectics, bringing new perspectives to the poetics of the image and a different understanding of the formative influences of nineteenth century aesthetics and twentieth century modernism on contemporary film and video. I approach these questions from the position of practice, of which the project has two components. Firstly, the representation of natural phenomena is discussed in a number of experimental films and videos, examining selected works in Europe and North America across the last century. The practices focused upon are those where techniques and processes of moving image technologies are brought into critical reflection in the representation of nature (and interests in motion and form). This includes the ways in which photosensitive silver halide crystals on film, electronic signals or pixels are engaged in the material process of the work’s making. Secondly, the works that I have made focus on the constituent technologies of the videographic image; the progressive scan, pixel, properties of digital colour, compression and display technologies. The technologically mediated image of nature is foregrounded with recordings of the sky, sea and terrain explored through system-based processes. The outcomes reflect a dialectical theory of knowledge in the experience of landscape and the human relation to nature. The video works have made present, in sensuous form, the transient ideas accorded to nature in the theories and concepts defined. The relations of practice (video works) and theory (the thesis) are dialectical, where both components interrelate, reflect and determine one another.

This thesis focuses upon fictitious people as food brand icons and their role and visual representation in contemporary international food packaging. It presents a new lens that focuses upon the visual reading of examples. Through comparative analysis of historical and contemporary British, Canadian and American examples primarily, ones that share comparable roles and visual characteristics, the study considers its hypothesis: a common visual formula operates across time and cultures in the creation and enduring omnipresence of icons that appear as real. It considers how shared visual codes provide identification of types and through such it presents a taxonomy of fictitious brand icons based upon their visual identity. The thesis considers, in relation to notions of storytelling, how examples read and are understood as real upon packaging and within wider commercial, social and cultural contexts. It considers how they relate to real people and roles through specific consideration of female home economist/ consumer advisor examples. The thesis focuses upon the American food brand icon Betty Crocker to consider how she may be understood as symbolic of a host of enigmatic examples. The thesis advances the study of packaging, branding, culinary history and design history through its original focus and methodological approach which evidently have been neglected previously in academic study. It braids interdisciplinary perspectives to present an original understanding of brand icons and packaging. It determines brand icon as key term; to address the need for a clear definition and understanding . The study's visual reading and taxonomy present an original framework that assert that visual codes create complex commercial and cultural fictitious personalities that can be deliberately elusive yet often appear as real. In particular, its interrogation of specific fictitious brand icons as enigmatic commercial home economists/consumer advisors confirms the existence of a commercial sisterhood; clone-types that appear to replicate their roles and appearance via visual codes that endure and appeal.

Ambiguity can arise from indecision, unintened confusion or as the international evocation of several meanings in the same image,object,situation or idea. Intentional ambiguity enables multiple interpretations of a message,increasing richness of meaning, while adding pleasure through uncertainty and surprise. In disciplines such as literature and fine art, ambiguity is preceived as not only desirable,but inherent to the value of the work of art or idea and its interpretation in the mind of the viewer. Yet the possibilities of ambiguity remain under explored in graphic design, a discipline predominatly (conventionally) concerned with clear comunication of mesage.