ABSTRACT
This chapter explores publishing as a platform that brings intercultural communication, decoloniality, graphic design and typography into productive dialog through engaged (in social and political issues; in dialogical, creative, and critical practice) and situated (local communities; international networks of editors, translators, designers, illustrators, publishers, and readers) design research frameworks and practices. This chapter takes a holistic, post-disciplinary approach to graphic design and typographic research that challenges notions of graphic design as purely aesthetic, or as concerns of form and function, and speaks to the shift in considering the wider politics and contributions of graphic design to societal change. Additionally, it aims to reframe design research, not as an elite academic activity but in the manner referred to by Appadurai as a daily human practice. The chapter concludes that how we undertake design research needs to be rethought so that it makes a genuine and meaningful contribution to critical planetary issues. To build on Appadurai’s approach to research, this chapter posits communication as a fundamental human right, as a pathway, and a goal in this reframing of research and design’s purpose.
