Research Methods

During one of the sessions last week, we explored the ways in which we can conduct research in order to underpin our projects throughout the rest of the course. Research is a vital part of any project – it is essentially the backbone of everything we create, supporting the decisions we make and how we can achieve a quality outcome. We must always consider the context we are creating in – who we are designing for, what we are designing with, and how we can fairly and responsibly create a piece of original work.

With this said, the session encouraged us to explore different ways of gathering research. In today’s age, one may jump straight to the internet and Google away – and whilst this is a valid method of researching, it’s quite a broad one, and often information can be false or biased. Furthermore, we do not always have the right to use what we find on Google. Copyright plays an incredibly important part within the modern world of media, and we must always be aware of rights and ownership. With these issues in mind, we had a look at another way of gathering valuable research – that being MetSearch, the university’s virtual library of research material. This system allows us to narrow down our search results and find more relevant information, as well as offering a plethora of information – such as books, articles and formal papers – to use as valid research with suitable references. Looking back, I believe that MetSearch offers a more varied and saturated approach to gathering research for our projects, and it’s a system I intend to use frequently when tackling projects.

The second half of the session supplied us with a task – we were to be given a graphic designer and a method of research, then asked to create a short presentation based upon the research we gathered. The group I was in were tasked with using the Cardiff Met Llandaff Library to study the working life of Paul Rand, an American graphic designer best known for his work in publishing, corporate logo design and advertising. Using MetSearch, we were able to retrieve 8 relevant results from the library (as opposed to the thousands that would appear online) and focused on using Steven Heller’s Paul Rand to underpin our presentation. We were able to examine various pieces of work by Rand, and considering I hadn’t ever seen his work before, we were able to pull a lot of information about his design processes.

The session concluded with the presentations of our findings, and we discovered a lot of new information about several designers – including Herbert Bayner, Gerd Arntz and Anthony Burrill – some of which I had never heard about before. The research context we were given all varied – some groups had the internet, others had the library and some had articles – and despite this, all presentations were saturated with valuable information. This proves that there is not just one way to approaching research when tackling our own projects. Before now, I had never really considered using a library to pull information about a specific task – I would always just use Google – but the session really heightened my awareness about different methods we can use to attain valuable information.

 

Sources:

Steven, H., 2000, Paul Rand, London: Phaidon Press Ltd.