The Art of Graphics in Design Education

Abstract

1. IntroductionDesignating graphic design as a vital tool in presentation part of architecture is a widely accepted notion not only in architectural practice but also in architectural education. Most of professional architects use graphic design as means of communication, which display their ideas and aims of an already completed design. Moreover, as Gurel and Basa (2004:193) conveyed there is also "a consensus for the necessity of an ideally finalized graphical presentation of a design project" in design studios; a tendency releted with "sets and systems of values that are hidden in the agenda of a design studio and its evaluation system".Nevertheless, these attitudes ignore the potentials of art of graphics within design process and constrain its usage by presentation. Indeed, graphic design could be a powerful tool especially in architectural education, for students to develop a design idea at the very beginning of the process.2. Problem StatementThe idea of presenting design in most pleasant and effective way forces designers to use the realm of visual language and art of graphics. Besides, visual representations such as sketches, drawings and virtual models are requirements as vital means of communication in the domain of architecture profession.For that reason, most of the architects are well equipped with graphical skills, but they don't consider them as neither technical nor theoretical part of their professional knowledge but as a part of their professional abilities. Hence, they dislocated graphical knowledge in presentation phase instead of the conceptual development process of an architectural design project. In other words, architects do not utilize their graphical skills as tool for design but as tool for displaying the already designed.3. Research QuestionsAlthough graphic design is designated as a powerful tool for presentation both in architectural education and in professional life, the authors would like to examine the possibility of wider use of art of graphics in conceptual development of a design project. Hence the this study questions if it is possible to integrate art of graphics within the design process implicitly by creating a demand for it on early stages of the design process?4. Purpose of the StudyThe purpose of this study is to show that utilizing art of graphics could be a productive side-tool in concept development stage of design process. In order to achieve this goal, it is important to understand the process of design and sequences of actions in a designing process.Nevertheless, it is not easy to understand the nature of design since it has many implicit personalized manners in decision making processes. Besides, the difficulty of understanding the design process lies partly in the fact that the design knowledge is tacit in nature, too. As in Polanyi's (1966:4) famous statement "we can know more than we can tell" in design education. On the other hand, the real difficulty lies in the fact that design process could not be linearly defined, because the sequences of actions in the process realized by many implicit inspirations and feedbacks. Because of these characteristics, it is defined as black box model for decision making. Black box of design is open to various inspirations and interactions, especially in the early stages of design which have many ambiguities (Bayazit: 1994). The art of graphics could be a productive tool, implicitly serving students at the fuzzy beginning of the black box. Mood boards provide a useful medium for students to experience working with the graphical skills at the early stages of the design process.The purpose of this paper is to present the results of practice of mood boards in the early phases of design education, experienced in 2013-2014 semester of Akdeniz University FFA, Interior Architecture and Environmental Design Department.5. Research MethodsIn order to show that utilizing art of graphics could be a productive side-tool, the authors decided to change the sequence of it in the design process from final to beginning stage. …