Visual Communication Design Histories in the Long 20th Century Symposium Proceedings 29-30 June 2012 Izmir University of Economics, Izmir, Turkey in collaboration with Parsons The New School for Design Jilly Traganou, Marina Emmanouil (eds.) ISBN 978-0-9915463-1-2 Editorial Editorial Team Headed by: Jilly Traganou, Marina Emmanouil Editorial Team Members: Dora Sapunar, Rachel Smith, Finn Ferris Proceedings Design Design Team Headed by: Marina Emmanouil, Zeynep Arda Design: IUE S-LAB Team Design Finalization: Can Aviral Typefaces: Myriad Pro, Gill Sans MT, Arial, FF Tisa Logotype: Alessandro Segalini Photography: Özge Deniz Özker, Burcu Çeliksap Symposium Design Concept Concept: Kardelen Aysel, Arda Yaraş, Ertuğrul Tunali Concept Finalization: Mark Hale, Cemre Ilgin Okcu Symposium Secretarial Assistance Emin Artun Özgüner (IEU), Elizabeth Parker (Parsons) Citation Jilly Traganou, Marina Emmanouil (eds.), Proceedings of the 1st Balkan Locus-Focus Symposium: Visual Communication Design Histories in the Long 20th century, 29-30 June 2012, Izmir University of Economics, Izmir, Turkey, 2014. ISBN 978-0-9915463-1-2. issuu.com/balkanlocusfocus2012. http://fadf.ieu.edu.tr/balkanlocusfocus/ 4 Balkan Locus-Focus 2012 Acknowledgments We would like to express our gratitude to our symposium co-organizers Aren Kurtgözü, Laurie Churchman, Fulya Ertem Başkaya, Alessandro Segalini, Emin Artun Özgüner and Elizabeth Parker. A special note should be granted to Emin Artun Özgüner for his meticulous and impeccable contribution throughout the organization of the symposium and beyond. For the editorial of the proceedings, we would like to thank Dora Sapunar, Rachel Smith and Finn Ferris at Parsons. Our thanks also extend to Victor Margolin, Jorge Frascara, Hakan Ertep, Ralph John Berney, Hakan Tuncel, Alper Gedik, Eser Sivri, Özge Deniz Özker, Mark Hale, and to all VCD students, especially, Aysu Sani, Elif Şener, Arda Yaraş, Gizem Çelik, İlayda Ürel, Onur Hoşbak, Can Aviral, and (IEU) Research Assistant Işıl Ezgi, for the creative and contextualized design solutions, as well as for their commitment, enthusiasm and sensitivity. This symposium would not have been possible without the support of the Izmir University of Economics and the School of Art and Design History and Theory of Parsons The New School for Design. Jilly Traganou & Marina Emmanouil Balkan Locus-Focus 2012 5 Contents 0 Introduction 8 Jilly Traganou For a Map Yet to Come: 1 Panel 1 23 Lida Hujić The Second Programme Is Always the First: The Introduction to the Balkan Locus-Focus Symposium Curious Legacy of Omladinski Program Radio Sarajevo 2 12 Marina Emmanouil Looking inside out 30 Ksenija Berk No Fear - No Führer: On the Radical Dissent and Guerilla Actions of Slovene Design Group Novi Kolektivizem 37 Tina Marić KvadArt: A Serbian Design Magazine 5 Panel 5 87 Silvia Posavec Orphan Art 6 Workshop 1 103 Bratislav Pantelić Visuality and Identity 93 Vahida Ramujkić Images in Search of a Place to Call Home: 107 Onur Atay Comparing Monuments: Nationalism Through Urban Disputed Histories - Personal and Oicial Narratives in (Post) Yugoslav Era History Textbooks Visual Culture 114 Beyza Uçak Narratives of National Identity Panel 2 2 46 Johannis Tsoumas Post-war Middle Class Greek Family through Female Representations in Advertising 54 Jelena Tamindzija Political Poster Design: Panel 3 3 59 Anna Czubilińska Hajde! - A Series of Travel Maps of The Balkans: Panel 4 4 77 Akile Nazlı Kaya Works out of One’s Own Personal Experiences BA Project 2011 65 Bharain Mac An Bhreithiun Narratives of Place in Balkan Graphic Design Making of Identity 83 Boštjan Botas Kenda Wayinding and City Identity 72 Marija Juza Balkan Visual Systems: Visualizing the Balkans Workshop 2 7 Concluding Remarks 8 125 Jilly Traganou Visualizing Histories / Overcoming Boundaries: 129 Fedja Vukić Mapping the Field of Tensions: New Methods in Design History Research Local Identity, Global Crisis 126 Photo Gallery 9 Photo Gallery 134 In organizing and coordinating an academic event, even at the modest scale of the 2012 Balkan Locus-Focus (BLF), one has the unique opportunity to listen to the present-day academic pulse closely, and oversee meaningful details that are usually hidden or out of sight to the public. Reporting from a privileged insider’s position, this text recounts selected moments in the making of the BLF as a way to bring to the fore issues concerning the discipline of Visual Communication Design (VCD) and the region in focus (the Balkans).1 The following two sections (wrapped up by a relexive text in the end) deal with the yet unsettled deinition of VCD by drawing from the varied and unexpected paper submissions to the open Call, and also present the design solutions devised by our VCD students for the symposium’s visual identity. This visual study is suggested to stand as a platform on which to relect and question the current state of the VCD discipline itself. Marina Emmanouil Looking Inside Out 12 Introduction Marina Emmanouil Even though the above two areas of inquiry (deinition of VCD and the event’s promotion) schematically belong to two diferent strands, theory and practice respectively, both share a common base, that is, territorial challenges and contested areas - assumed or gained - that have (or so it would be argued) interestingly overlapping characteristics, among them abstraction, substitution and appropriation. It is this common ground that my report relects on in an attempt to understand what one can make out of the current entanglement of various deinitions related to the institutional status of the discipline; and from a design perspective to ofer a view of some strategic visual responses that address conlicting interests in the area. In place of a conclusion, it is suggested that there is a need to discuss the ield’s status and deinition across contexts in order to better understand what we, academicians and practitioners, are representing and what direction our discipline would be best to take. This is an open-ended inquiry that raises some questions born out of this event. Visual Communication Design: too new, or too vague a term? The BLF symposium was a two-day event hosted by the Faculty of Fine Arts and Design (FFAD) at Izmir University of Economics (IUE) in June 2012 as part of the yearly academic activities of the Visual Communication Design Department.2 In total our seventeen presenters talked about Slovenia, Croatia, Sarajevo, Greece, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Romania. Drawing from this experience, an issue emerged as a surprise in response to the open Call. The issue could be summarized as one of institutional crossover. Despite the eforts in deining the ield of VCD (appearing in the symposium’s head title: Balkan Locus-Focus: Visual Communication Design Histories) and by explicitly noting also its design applications (graphic design, advertising, typography, web design, media),3 some paper submissions on visual arts, architecture, ilm, and fashion stood out because papers from these disciplines were not invited or anticipated. Certainly, considering, in general, the myriad of interior architecture graphics, ilm posters and magazine advertisements for fashion brands, the link between the aforementioned areas and graphic design (and its history) is Balkan Locus-Focus 2012 close and somewhat expected. However, these submissions that otherwise appeared to be engaging and interesting in their own respect, did not have any direct reference to the study of graphic design and its history. They drew mostly from the areas of the well-established cultural studies, visual culture, philosophy, and politics, without a clear connection to the discipline of VCD. Unquestionably, all design manifestations are visual systems of communication, howev13 Marina Emmanouil er, the type of work proposed from the above ields did not it in with our stated description of the discipline. Deeply puzzled with the response to the Call and in view of our own selfrelection of what we expected to receive as contributions, we decided to include a workshop under the title ‘Visuality and Identity’ that was inclusive of art, architecture and politics. This report was born out of a personal struggle to understand what went wrong in our initial Call and attempts at deinition of the discipline. Were our expectations too narrowminded after all? Considering the history of work becoming regarded as profession, professional design work only dates back to the early twentieth century with the increasing division of labor and separation of the technical from the design part of the process.4 In that respect the profession of VCD, originally known as ‘Graphic Design’5 (GD) in the early 1920s, may be considered the youngest amongst the design professions. A further sign of its ongoing development today can also be seen in the emergence of graduate programs in higher education and in ongoing debates.6 Moreover, it is true that while ifteen years ago graphic design concentrated more or less on some speciic mostly print-based design practices (such as 14 logotype design, poster, book publishing, packaging), as well as few web design examples, today new media and state-of-the-art software and advanced technological tools allow professional designers to produce sophisticated virtual environments unseen in the not-so-distant past. The new term irst appears in the map of graphic design practice and discourse roughly around the late 1960s. In those early times, designer and theoretician Jorge Frascara explains: ‘… the term VCD was used at the creation of the program at the University of Alberta, in 1967, [and] … was born out of attempting to include photo and movies, way before computers came about. It was not meant for architecture […], because in our case the essence of what we do is represented by VCD, not in architecture, even though architecture is ALSO visual communication.’7 Oicially, the issue of (re)deining the discipline was raised by the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (former ICOGRADA, est. 1963, now ico-D: International Council of Design) when the Executive Board undertook a major policy review between 2005-7. One of the most signiicant outcomes was an update to the deinition of the profession with a shift from ‘graphic design’ to ‘comIntroduction munication design’. According to the Board members: ‘The new deinition both broadens our understanding of the areas of practice and relects the global shift from focusing on design as the production of an artifact to design as a strategic process that enables communication in a visual format.‘8 By excluding the word ‘visual’ from the title, the ield opened up its doors to include also non-visual communication, such as sound and other sensory designed experiences. Discussion about the term ‘communication’, which had existed since the late 1980s, introduced the fundamental principle of getting the idea to communicate with the audience rather having merely a debate about style and aesthetics that the term ‘graphic’ may convey. The term ‘visual communication design’ is subject to a long series of interpretations. The diferent deinitions of the word ‘design’ in everyday language have contributed to a lack of precision in understanding the job of the visual communication designer. Design is generally understood as the physical product derived from the activity, but the activity itself is often overlooked.’9 However, the use of the term ‘Communication Design’ that appears most commonly in the American context, has caused some troubles. The nine-year-long (hi)story of the VCD Marina Emmanouil Department at IUE is not an exception to this muddle of deinitions. The department started operating in 2004-5 under the name ‘Department of Communication Design’ (İletişim Tasarımı Bölümü), and within the irst three years of its operation did not attract the desirable amount of students. An oicial reason given was that the title was ‘not a descriptive’ one and mostly ‘confusing’ for people in the local context, especially in language when translated into Turkish.10 Therefore, it underwent a title change in 2008 under the second recommendation of Hakan Ertep, Department Chair at the time.11 The addition of the word ‘Visual’ in the name (Visual Communication Design Department / Görsel İletişim Tasarımı Bölümü) was thought to it into the rational of clarifying better what the department was about. Also, the new name was meant to stand as a truthful relection of the skills and expertise of current instructors,12 and also to distinguish it, somewhat, from the kindred departments at the Faculty of Communication (that include very distinct ields: Journalism, Radio and TV Broadcasting, Film, etc.). The issue of the low number of registered students resurfaced this year (January 2014); as a viable solution the university’s upper administration suggested a merger with the Film and Digital Media Department under the Faculty of Communication.13 The occasion has stirred a hot debate, albeit one not new in the history of our Faculty, and perhaps not so unusual in the broader academic terrain.14 It is this important diference between the two terms (‘graphic design’ and ‘visual communication’) that US-based design historian Johanna Drucker raises in her critical appraisal of two seminal graphic design history books by Philip Meggs (1983) and Richard Hollis (1994).15 Even though both publications share the same title ‘History of Graphic Design’, Drucker scrutinizes the diference in scope and purpose of these books. According to the author, Meggs considers ‘graphic design’ interchangeable with ‘visual communication’ starting from pre-history and ending in the information age, including artifacts from preliterate traditional cultures to charts, symbols and web design.16 Whereas Megg’s deinition of graphic design is not constrained by a historical deinition, Hollis’s understanding of graphic design adheres to a more ‘orthodox historical’ narrative. Hollis’ account starts with the late nineteenth-century industrialized era with the separation of graphic design to print production by considering that ‘objects are never self-evident, but are instruments and means of mediating relations of power and inluence, Balkan Locus-Focus 2012 ideology and meaning production’.17 Understanding the diference between the terms is as important as understanding the depth and meaning of the word ‘communication’ per se, and thus the shift from ‘graphic’ to ‘communication’ design becomes important. As Frascara notes, ‘visual communication design, seen as an activity, is the process of conceiving, programming, projecting, and realizing visual communications that are usually produced through industrial means and are aimed at broadcasting speciic messages to speciic sectors of the public. This is done with a view toward having an impact on the public’s knowledge, attitudes, or behavior in an intended direction’.18 On the educational front, revisions in terminology for the graphic design profession have become commonplace in the last few decades, relecting its overgrowing potential.19 Looking closer at programs of study across the globe, both terms (GD and VCD) are used interchangeably and variations of them exist alongside each other in design education curricula today. The hybrid form of ‘Graphic Communication’ coined by designer and theoretician Michael Twyman, appears, for instance, in the program of study at the University of Reading, UK, and has done, in fact, since the late 1960s.20 Recently, the same term is also used in the 15 Marina Emmanouil newly formed University of Nicosia in Cyprus,21 and other universities employ a similar complex variety of programs of study. ‘Graphic Design’ and ‘Graphic Communication’ appear at Norwich University of the Arts (NUA), UK, as two separate programs of study that run in parallel.22 Moreover, ‘Communication Design’ is included in the NUA’s curriculum as one of the three strands of specialism for second-year undergraduate graphic design students,23 and also, as an MA program of study.24 One can ind many examples of this, or similar kind, across Western and non-Western contexts. Would these variations in scholarly environments cause unwanted confusion, disillusion and disorientation to the intended audience (students) and beyond? Or is this a symptom of the manifold expectations of the design profession in the real world that is also relected in academia at a slower pace? Or does this plethora of terms point to something else, akin to the perplex nature of design independent of rigid deinitions? Even though I wholeheartedly agree with Frascara in his claim that ‘terms, as names for professions, are only words [,] [t]hey get their meaning from reality, not vice-versa’,25 yet, I still think that the questions may still be valid and open for discussion. For instance, is the emergent term (VCD) concrete enough to de16 lineate a kind of boundary from kindred disciplines, namely architecture and fashion? Does the in-a-state-of-transition discipline of VCD need time and scholarly commitment to be acknowledged as one that concerns speciically the (evolving) graphic design profession? Or, is it a term that, with such a vague collection of words, needs reconsideration? In our search for answers, where can we turn to ind a way to deine what we are and what we do? Designing the Symposium’s Identity: Design Solutions to Regional Problems The organization of the Balkan Locus-Focus symposium,26 known euphemistically as ‘Balkan hocus-pocus’ among colleagues and students, revolved around the idea of using design created by practitioners that are ideally of Balkan origin. For instance, the typeface used for the logotype is FF Tisa by Slovene graphic and typeface designer Mitja Miklavčič (Fig. 1).27 The challenging task of designing the event’s identity was given as a project to second-year visual communication design students during their VCD 201 studio class in Fall 2011. Working for this project, students identiied several Introduction Figure 1: BLF logotype design by Alessandro Segalini (using FF Tisa by Mitja Miklavčič) issues concerning the geographical and political discrepancies of the region: irstly, the shifting geographical borders of the Balkan countries that resulted from numerous tragedies of wars and several ideological, religious, and ethnic conlicts in the long twentieth century; secondly, students faced the challenge of dealing with what certain colors and color combinations signiied, in order to construct a neutral, nation-free visual identity for the event. One set of colors may connote a single country’s lag or national colors, and this needed to be avoided for obvious reasons. The students transformed these varying political and cultural issues into design problems. Several themes have been drawn from Marina Emmanouil the local context. For instance, some design ideas emphasized similar pattern characteristics found in folk tradition, religious connections, and iconography. Other design solutions were more abstract, and because of this, their generic and highly stylized outcomes created a weak connection to what this spe- Figure 2: Poster design by Kardelen Aysel (Idea 1) ciic event was about, and which region was the focus. The criteria set for pursuing an idea that would better it the purpose, was fundamentally determined by the responses we received from the people interested to participate in this event. Apparently, clarifying what the Balkans is (by visually representing the region as an actual geographic locus) was necessary, as there were some misunderstandings of the geographic location in the incoming papers. Some of these contributions concerned countries in Western or Central Europe that had developed an entirely diferent character and status from Balkan countries during the period. Most interestingly, we received papers that featured the least expected loci, such as the Arabic nations and China. Students’ visualization of the actual geography aimed at being both informative and descriptive of the subject matter. The inal design (Fig. 5) was developed from three separate ideas worked out by Kardelen Aysel, Arda Yaraş and Ertuğrul Tunali (Fig. 2, 3, 4). Their concepts addressed the problems we encountered both in and outside the classroom. These separately conceived ideas were chosen and combined together to form the visual identity of the symposium (Fig. 5). The following sections ofer a brief description of the ideas developed by the three students. Balkan Locus-Focus 2012 Idea 1: Geographic abstraction (by Kardelen Aysel) (Fig. 2): The non-accurate delineation of countries through plain, basic geometric shapes was developed as a way to provide a conceptual framework for thinking of the Balkans as a construction and accumulation of places of shifting borders and national ter- Figure 3: Poster design by Arda Yaraş (Idea 2) 17 Marina Emmanouil Idea 2: Local appropriation (by Arda Yaraş) (Fig. 3): The Balkans has traditionally been the most ‘rugged’ area of political tensions in Europe in modern times.28 The idea developed by Arda contributed further to the visual trope of the irst idea (the abstract topography by Kardelen) by introducing within each country shape a pattern that refers to the ‘Balkan puzzle’ often used in quilt design. Arda’s work relected the ideas of unity and segregation that exist and have existed within many Balkan countries, such as Yugoslavia. Idea 3: Substitution (by Ertuğrul Tunali) (Fig. 4): Selection and combination of colors has been a design struggle among students as it has been diicult to come up with a meaningful, yet neutral color palette, that will not refer to any of the Balkan countries’ national insignia, but still bring in the vibrant and dynamic aura of the region. The solution was given by Ertuğrul, who focused instead on the discipline of graphic design, i.e., the subject matter of the symposium, and speciically, on the colors that are associated with print production, that is the CMYK palette (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key-Black). In Place of a Conclusion: A Sign of Weakness, or Resilience? As in any introduction or innovation, name giving in Art and Design is a time consuming challenge to resolve. As seen from the visual study above, design is a privileged terrain in Long 20 th Century Visual Communication Design Histories 1st Symposium 29-30 June 2012 Izmir, Turkey Visual Communication Design Department Faculty of Fine Arts and Design Izmir University of Economics http:// fadf.ieu.edu.tr/ balkanlocusfocus / School of Art and Design History and Theory Figure 5: BLF poster design Figure 4: Poster design by Ertuğrul Tunali (Idea 3) 18 Introduction Typeface: FF Tisa | Logo: Alessandro Segalini | Concept: Kardelen Aysel, Arda Yaras, Ertugrul Tunali | Finalization: Mark Hale, Cemre Ilgin Okcu ritories. In this way, Balkan countries illed an approximate, non-accurately depicted space in the world map. Marina Emmanouil which one can maneuver by using the principles of abstraction, substitution and appropriation to fulill given requirements and speciications. Can these design solutions become the paradigm to discuss the complex issues involved in the VCD discipline? In other words, would abstraction, substitution and appropriation be a conceptual framework with which to explain and understand the current state of the profession? If we are to employ this platform, that is, taking the design’s practical methods/tools as an analogy for viewing VCD in the academic domain, then one can argue that instead of the discipline of VCD being the soft underbelly of other design (and art) ields, it is in fact, a lexible, resilient playground of theory and experiment. It is in this new territory that many other ields can ind resonance and conidence to develop and expand in an inclusive and welcoming environment. However, can and should this uncertainty be the strength of the discipline? Moreover, while this can be a viable solution for now, would this uncertain/undeined situation serve us well enough for the years to come? In other words, would it be wise, too, to think of how to ensure that this proposal (of an inclusive, resilient VCD) has a sustainable future? Notes 1. Deining the Balkans is a challenging task. Broadly speaking, the Balkans is a geographical term, which designates the large peninsula in the southeastern part of the European continent, connecting Europe to Asia Minor. For our event, ‘Balkans’ was meant to cover the following independent countries that are known today as (South) ‘Eastern Europe’: Albania; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Bulgaria; Croatia; Macedonia (FYROM); Greece; Kosovo; Montenegro; Romania; Serbia; Slovenia; Turkey. As deinition of the Balkans varies signiicantly according to scope and orientation of study, countries of Central and Middle Europe (e.g., Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic), and those originally belonging to the Russian Empire (Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) were excluded. 2. Izmir University of Economics (IUE, est. 2001) is a western-aspired (North American) foundation institution run by a private entrepreneur and the Izmir Chamber of Commerce Education and Health Foundation. More information: http://www.ieu.edu.tr/en/genelbilgiler. Today, the VCD department is one of the ive departments that comprise the Faculty of Fine Arts and Design; the other four being: Fashion, Industrial, Interior Architecture, and Architecture. 3.http://fadf.ieu.edu.tr/balkanlocusfocus/?page_ Balkan Locus-Focus 2012 id=179 4. Such division is shown in major graphic design history textbooks, such as Richard Hollis, A Concise History of Graphic Design (New York: Thames and Hudson Inc., 1993). 5. Graphic design was a term coined by William Addison Dwiggins in 1922 to replace the term ‘commercial art’. Alan and Isabella Livingston, Dictionary of graphic design and designers (London: Thames and Hudson, 1992). 6. Kate LaMere, ‘Reframing the Conversation about Doctoral Education: Professionalization and the Critical Role of Abstract Knowledge’ in Iridescent: Icograda Journal of Design Research, 2 (1) 2012, under the theme: ‘Facing the Future: Postgraduate Research in Communication Design’, available online at: http://iridescent. icograda.org/2012/12/09/reframing_the_conversation_about_doctoral_education_professionalization_and_the_critical_role_of_abstract_knowledge/ category16.php [Accessed on 28 November 2013]. See also, David Durling, ‘Discourses in research and the PhD in Design’, Quality Assurance in Education, 10 (2) 2002: 79-85. Also, debates concern the scope and interdisciplinary approach of graphic design practice at a Master’s level, as seen in the critical appraisal provided 19 Marina Emmanouil by designer and author Rick Poynor: http://iridescent. icograda.org/2012/12/09/reframing_the_conversation_about_doctoral_education_professionalization_and_the_critical_role_of_abstract_knowledge/ category16.php. Today, Lebanese communication designer Joanna Choukeir attempts to re-visit the subject in her research for the purposes of clariication and positioning: http://joannachoukeir.com/DeiningCommunication-Design [Accessed on 29 November 2013]. 7. Electronic communication with Jorge Frascara on 22 October 2013. Jorge Frascara is Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta, Canada. An early example of academic writing on the issue is P. O. Marsh, Messages that Work: A Guide to Communication Design (Englewood Clifs, New Jersey: Educational Technology Publications, 1983). 8. Ratiied by the ICOGRADA General Assembly 22, La Habana, Cuba, 26 October 2007. The link to the page (originally assessed in November 2013) has been removed from the oicial pages of ICOGRADA: http:// www.icograda.org/about/about/articles836.htm [Accessed on 21 November 2013]. 9. Jorge Frascara, User-Centred Graphic Design: Mass Communications and Social Change (London & Bristol 20 PA: Taylor & Francis Ltd., 1997), and Jorge Frascara, Communication Design: Principles, Methods, and Practice (New York: Allworth Press, 2004): 1. 10. Personal communication with Prof. Hakan Ertep, former VCD Chairman (2004-2011) on December 4, 2013, and current Chair of the Visual Communication Design Department at Yaşar University, Izmir, Turkey. With the term ‘Communication Design’ one could understand also the design of communication as a process, not just the design of posters, logotypes and other applications. See also Ertep’s interesting insight on the subject in his conference paper (2004): Hakan Ertep, ‘The Positioning of Visual Communication Design in Communication Faculties: A New Model or a New Problem?’ in the Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium of Interactive Media Design, ed. Emin Doğan Aydın, January 5-7, 2004, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey, 49-55. 11. The irst attempt in 2007 to rename the department was rejected by the university’s Senate. Personal communication with H. Ertep on 4 December 2013. 12. At the time, the department’s staf did not specialize in non-visual design communication (in the strict sense of the term), for example, sound or tactile desing. Personal communication with H. Ertep on 4 DeIntroduction cember 2013. 13. Coincidentally the Film and Digital Media Department also experienced low student registration igures this year (2013/14). Despite the increase of the number of private universities in the region/city and the subsequent division of the target share, the department’s relational status (the two departments was thought to share many common educational objectives and terminological resemblance - ‘Communication’ as a common word - with the Faculty of Communication, this was the oicial reasoning that was pressed onto both departments. 14. An internal report was written in 2010 by the former Dean, Prof. Tevik Balcıoğlu, in order to safeguard the status of the Faculty and departments: Tevik Balcıoğlu,‘The Debate’ (Internal document, Faculty of Fine Arts and Design, Izmir University of Economics, Turkey, 2010). 15. Philip Meggs, A History of Graphic Design (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983), and Richard Hollis, A Concise History of Graphic Design (1994). 16. Johanna Drucker, ‘Philip Meggs and Richard Hollis: Models of Graphic Design History’, Design and Culture, 1 (1) March 2009, 51-77: 57. 17. Drucker (2009), 57. Marina Emmanouil 18. Frascara (2004), 2. 19. See for instance, the proposition to switch to the term ‘Graphics’ by Robert Harland, who reports on the case of the UK: Robert Harland ‘Towards an integrated pedagogy of graphics in the United Kingdom’, Iridescent: Icograda Journal of Design Research, 2 (1), 2012: http://iridescent.icograda.org/2012/12/08/ towards_an_integrated_pedagogy_of_graphics_in_ the_united_kingdom/2012.php. Also, drawing from experience, my undergraduate degree (2001) in ‘TwoDimensional Design’ at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, acquired the title: ‘Graphic Design’ only a few years after my graduation, while today is named BA (Hons) Graphic Design and Illustration. At the time of my studies, in parallel to the 2-D programme, there was also a 3-D module focusing on multimedia as a separate strand. More information: http://www.herts. ac.uk/courses/graphic-design-and-illustration [Accessed on Saturday 18 October 2013]. 20. The subject area is deined as: ‘Graphic Design’, and the BA programme name is: ‘Typography and Graphic Communication’. http://www.reading.ac.uk/Study/Departments/ugTypographyGraphicCommunication.aspx [Accessed on Saturday 18 October 2013]. 21. Based at the School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Department of Design and Multimedia. http://www.unic.ac.cy/bachelor-degrees/graphiccommunication-4-years-bachelor-of-arts [Accessed on Saturday 18 October 2013]. 22. ‘Graphic Communication is of fundamental importance to the way we interact with each other and our environment; it touches on all aspects of modern life. This ideas driven, industry focused BA (Hons) Graphic Communication degree course will invite you to be creative, adventurous and inventive as you master the skills of visual communication’. ‘NUA’s competitive BA (Hons) Graphic Design degree course places great emphasis on supporting students to not only develop core competences in design but more importantly to be original and creative thinkers. The development of ideas is the fundamental cornerstone of the course and it is this approach that has contributed to its excellent reputation within the design industry’. http:// www.nua.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/ [Accessed on 18 October 2013]. 23. The other two specialisms ofered are: Brand, Identity and Packaging Design, and Publishing Design. http://www.nua.ac.uk/images/documents/nua/prospectus2014/nua_prospectus_2014_bagraphicdeBalkan Locus-Focus 2012 sign.pdf) [Accessed on 18 October 2013]. 24. ‘This MA will challenge you to relect on your existing practice and push your ideas as you immerse yourself in current research and trends within the sector. Working alongside academic staf you will be supported to address the professional, theoretical, ethical, technical, conceptual and visual aspects of design’: http://www.nua.ac.uk/macommunicationdesign/ [Accessed on 18 October 2013]. 25. Electronic communication with Jorge Frascara on 22 October 2013. 26. Originally the two words (‘Locus’ and ‘Focus’) were separated by a ‘/’ as to aid the following reading: Balkan Locus, Balkan Focus. However, the initial idea was lost in the design process. 27. FF Tisa (for print) was initially created in 2006 to fulill the requirements for the MA in Typeface Design, University of Reading, Department of Typography and Graphic Communication and was awarded the Certiicate of Excellence in Type Design for 2007. 28.http://www.fontshop.com/fontlist/families/f_tisa/. 29. Ioannis Michaletos, ‘Balkan puzzle and the European aphasia’, paper at http://www.serbianna.com/ columns/michaletos/002.shtml [Accessed on 12 December 2013]. 21 154 Photo Gallery