Re-envisioning Graphic Design as a Dialogic Practice: An Investigation into the Constructive Potential of Disruption within Aesthetic Practices

The aesthetic dimension of graphic design is often considered an “added-value” to the content, which determines the importance of the piece. As a result, the critical potential of form is often overlooked and involvement in content production and selection serves as the primary way to engage in critical discourse. This thesis however highlights the dialogic dimension of aesthetics by focusing on disruption as a constructive tool for disciplinary inquiry. It uses disruptions to the conventional norms of professional practice as a way to reconcile design’s critical potential and its commercial reality. Form-making is considered a form of écriture with the capability to initiate both disciplinary and socio-cultural discourse. Semiotic theory is used as a framework for investigation. As such, the thesis includes an analysis of the effect of disruption to the pragmatic, syntactic and semantic dimensions of design works, including examples from the field as well as the results of personal visual exploration.