Design - Visual Communication

Visual Communication Research

Visual Communication Research supports staff specialising in a range of areas including: photography, illustration, film, performance, typography, drawing, digital media and cross-cultural studies of visual communication. It is the aim of the group to investigate and contribute to current developments in visual communication through both theoretical research and visual practice.

The visual communication research group hosts a number of funded research projects, and has a range of international collaborations. The research activities within the group include:

• Practical visual outcomes in the form of exhibitions, installations, and films
• Contributions to the debate around practice-led research in art and design
• Exploration of the links between performance, moving image and new media technologies
• Critical studies of contemporary visual culture with an international comparative dimension
• International conference presentations, journal papers and editing.

Topics include: information design, way-finding, the photography of Robert Frank, the semiotics of drawing, advertising communication, strategies for learning and teaching art and design, the collaboration of video and ballet.

Associated with this area of research is the Typographic Hub which was launched in 2011 as a centre for the study of typographic history, theory and practice.

Researchers

Dr Caroline Archer, Dr Jonathan Day, Ravi Deepres, Paul O’Donnell, Colette Jeffrey, Clive Richards

Current research students

Lara Furniss (PhD), Defying Classification: A study exploring the processes of 21st Century design studios (Supervisors: Lawrence Green and Lubo Jankovic)

Collette Jeffery (PhD), Are you lost? Spatial disorientation in complex buildings: A phenomenological study of human wayfinding behaviour and spatial disorientation during task-based activity (Supervisors: Richard Coles and Lubo Jankovic)