Project

Project aims and relevance

The research project Studies on Iberoamerican visual design culture in the 20th century: convergences, contrasts and conflicts between modernisms and local traditions brought together professors and researchers from the fields of design and history, associated with research centers dedicated to investigations on visual and graphic design, print culture, and on the history of art and design, aiming at shedding light on the relationships between modernism and local traditions that shaped Iberoamerican visual design cultures during the twentieth century.

The relevance of such an investigation is based on the central role that designed visual artifacts (from corporate identities and brands to printed and online publications, from typefaces to memes) play in the contemporary world, affecting our daily life. An indisputable proof of this is the daily presence of designed digital interfaces that mediate current forms of communication and sociality. According to North American design historian and theorist Victor Margolin, designers “are responsible for the artifacts, systems and environments that make up the social world […] companies would have nothing to manufacture without designers, nor would they have services to offer”.[1]

Although the origins of what is called today ‘visual’, ‘graphic’ or ‘communication’ design can be traced back to the first human efforts for consolidating means for registering and transmitting information through some sort of visible language, it is during the twentieth century that design (and visual design as one of its branches) is established as a field of practice, of studies, and of knowledge. Design cultures —or of shared sets of references, meanings and values related to design—, however, have not been established in the same way and at the same pace in all regions of the world, and important differences that are still in action today mark the status and the role of design in more or less industrialized countries.

The project sought to question this state of affairs under the light of the debate on modernization processes in Europe and Latin America. The specificity and richness of design cultures both in some parts of Europe and in practically all Latin American countries defy the classic narrative that places the consolidation of modern designs within the framework of industrial modernization processes. In Latin America, design is, to a large extent, a cultural rather than an economic or industrial phenomena. In the context of modernity, this implies analyzing the convergences, contrasts and conflicts between modernisms and local traditions (how different cultures have interpreted their cultural and visual production vis-à-vis modernist ideas of progress, innovation, democratization of use/reading, and cultural inflections). 

Regarding design cultures, during the twentieth century a dialogue between Europe and Latin America has been established. Design education has been involved in the creation of institutions whose legacy has been described in different ways, sometimes as vehicles for the import of models for development not always coherent with Latin American reality, but also as poles within networks for the circulation of ideas about development that equally committed actors, initiatives and institutions in Europe and America.

Project development and expected results

This proposal aims at a series of exploratory investigations on various aspects of visual design in Iberoamerican countries, and in particular in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Spain, conducted by members of the research team. Departing from the research teams expertise and interests, it will be an occasion for exchanging research methods and procedures, aiming at the establishment of shared methodologies for data collection and analysis that should contribute to comparative studies. Topics of special interest for the development of such studies are: design education, book design, magazine design, record covers design, photography, print culture and typography.

The results of such studies should be disseminated in high quality joint research papers to be presented in the main research conferences and published in the most relevant journals of the area, such as the conferences promoted by the International Committee for Design History and Design Studies (ICDHS) and the Design History Society, and journals like Design Issues, Design Culture and Journal of Design History. The interaction among research team members should facilitate the conception and submission of joint research bids. Although only one PhD student integrates the research team, it is expected that the academic mobility promoted by this research project will benefit many other postgraduate students in the participant institutions.

The first trimester of the research should be dedicated to exploratory data collection and to setting up the basis of joint investigations among members of different teams. The second and third trimesters should be dedicated to systematic data collection and treatment, and for the first stages of data analysis. The last trimester should be dedicated to data analysis and interpretation, and preparation of joint research papers.

All research team members are expected to participate in two workshops. The first one should be an occasion for planning joint investigations, exchange of primary information and of methods for data collection, treatment and analysis. During the second workshop, participants should be able to present what they have obtained so far, plan the conclusion of ongoing research and the diffusion of research results. It should also be an occasion for planning new joint research bids and collaborations.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemics, the terms of the grant offered by UIU have changed, and the research schedule revised in 2020.

In 2021, a researcher from Universidade de Aveiro, in Portugal joined the network supported by UIU as a collaborator. 

The first workshop took place December 2019, in Barcelona, and was the only one hosted in person —the others, due to restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemics, were all hosted online. A second workshop, organized by the USP team in São Paulo, happened in August 2020; a third event was organized by the UBA team in Buenos Aires in 2021; and a fourth meeting was organized, also in 2021, by the UCM team in Madrid.