From Voice ~ Topics: education, graphic design, writing
Writing 101: Visual or Verbal?
Liz Losh is an English teacher. But put aside your image of a frumpy schoolmarm with faded gravy stains on her blazer. This hip, forty-something ex-punk rocker teaches at the University of California Irvine, where she oversees an introductory writing course that enrolls over 1,100 students. She also teaches advanced seminars on digital rhetoric, where projects include editing a blog, producing a YouTube video and crafting a virtual persona on Second Life.
Likewise, Cheryl E. Ball, assistant professor of new media at Illinois State University, teaches “multimodal” writing courses, in which students assemble images and texts using video, photography, web design and page layout. Ball says, “We are looking at the idea of ‘composition’ in the broadest sense, going way beyond the old model of grammar-based freshman comp courses.”
Prose painting by Ellen Lupton.
A spate of new writing textbooks suggests that a visual revolution is underway in college writing curricula. The sleek, sophisticated Seeing & Writing series, designed by 2x4 and launched in 1999, shook up the field of English composition by inviting students to analyze visual artifacts, from works of photojournalism to contemporary art installations. A bigger change came with Picturing Texts (2004), which not only uses visuals as prompts for writing but addresses design as an active, generative tool. The book’s designer, Anna Palchik, helped infuse the project with credible instruction on basic visual principles as well as selecting readings by Tibor Kalman, Jessica Helfand, Richard Wilde and other graphic designers. (Disclosure: Picturing Texts includes a piece co-authored by Abbott Miller and me.) Assignments include creating book covers, postcards, scrapbooks and brochures as well as traditional essays.
Meanwhile, many young designers are wondering if their own college English courses were tough enough to prepare them for real-world writing tasks such as bidding for jobs, justifying design solutions, delivering presentations and marketing their work. Even routine email communication requires command of the written language. (Some of my students seem to believe that just because they can’t spell, their employers won’t be able to, either.) Designer Scott Stowell, speaking at AIGA’s recent “Social Studies” conference, talked about the seamless integration of text and graphics in his work for GOOD magazine and other clients. “I can’t imagine being a designer who can’t write,” said Stowell. And it’s not just about business. The glorious, sloppy, over-populated blogosphere beckons everyone to participate, but you can only play if you have something to say and you know how to say it.
How are graphic designers learning to write? Since the late 1970s, a movement known as Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) has argued that writing should be taught in every course on campus, not just in specialized composition courses. Because each discipline—from art to engineering—has its own standards and conventions, faculty in each field should be teaching its own practitioners how to write. Yet few design educators have the time or confidence to load this duty on to their studio courses.
Some are giving it a try. Andrea Marks has authored a new e-book on writing for visual thinkers, which emphasizes brainstorming techniques rather than grammar and composition. As for me, I’m teaching a stand-alone writing course for graphic design MFA students at MICA this spring. I won’t be using any of the sexy new composition textbooks, however. Instead, I’m focusing on basic style, starting with how to craft a seaworthy sentence and how to pare down over-upholstered prose. Our textbook? Strunk and White’s classic Elements of Style (Maira Kalman’s illustrated edition, of course).
Even Liz Losh agrees that most young writers still need to work on the basics, especially on college campuses like hers, where over half the students speak a home language other than English. As foot soldiers in the visual revolution, students have more to learn, and faculty have more to teach. Introducing the principles of web design and typography shouldn’t replace teaching writing as a precise, rule-based medium of communication. In the digital age, people are writing more, not less. The alphabet isn’t dead; it just has a lot more company.
Additional reading
Writing in a Visual Age, by Lee Odell and Susan M. Katz.
On the history of visual literacy instruction, see Diana George, “From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing,” in Teaching Composition: Background Readings, ed. T. R. Johnson.
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Ellen,
I don't have much to add other than this is a very important issue to our industry and cannot be covered enough. That said, I will indulge with three comments:
1. The notion that writing should be a part of EVERY course is spot on.
2. I appreciate your efforts to incorporate a stand-alone writing course into MICA's MFA program
3. "Elements of Style" is a an excellent text book selection.
Thank you,
Michael -
Liz Losh also has pioneered for the last few years 1100 rigorous scholarly freshman individual research projects on topics of their own choice, their "passions" as they say, such as medical ethics, online game design, children's orchestras. Not only that, but she has mentored teams of instructors and grad students directing these projects and helping students make responsible and original use of primary and secondary sources. She holds the line on SWE Standard Written English, too. At first, we didn't believe 1100 students a year could develop and achieve these projects, but then... Kudos for helping thousands generate this yes-we-can in writing.
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Hi Ellen
I totally agree to you about offering writing skills at undergrad level. Also, in the kind of profession we are, where each and every word and sentence we write, has alot to convince.
Best regards
Gunjan Ahlawat
Graphic Designer, Penguin Books India -
Writing is communication. I am a math professor, and tell students that their responsibility is to communicate correctly. Communication is based upon agreed basic principles and logic. Good writing requires understanding of the principles. See "Teaching and Helping Students Think and Do Better" on amazon.
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Q. "How are graphic designers learning to write?"
A. A liberal arts education should be part of the picture. I'd like to suggest that good writing skills don't start at the collegiate level. These skills are something that should be cultivated at any early age, starting with trips to the library and learning grammar basics in elementary school. Writing competence at a high school level correlates strongly with college writing success.
For undergraduate students, the adaptation of verbal design criticism and integration of industry vocabulary requires the ability to translate knowledge across mediums. This skill should come from a lifetime of literate experiences and should be honed in a communications class. But it doesn't start there. -
We just got some great insight about how writing can benefit communication and design from this article by Partick Coyne http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/the-quest-for-knowledge
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Thank you AIGA for highlighting this issue. I've noticed a growing concern that many new designers are lacking in the writing skill needed to meet today's business objectives. Like others, I believe that attaining solid writing skill comes from the "practice" of writing, articulating and generally developing as a conversationalist. This must be a life-long priority.
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I am familiar with the “writing across curriculum” program. Recently, I took a photography class where some of the assignments involved writing about famous photographers and their respective oeuvres. I felt it improved my ability to think conceptually and visually.
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When it comes to great communication, great design is frequently indistinguishable from great writing; Glaser’s I Heart New York comes to mind. Sure, designers can stand to think a bit more like writers; but I’d argue that writers (like me) can also stand to think MUCH more like designers. Line breaks, capitalization, and typography all contribute as much as word choice. And why is it that designers have elevated things like signage systems to an art form, while we writers have yet to confront the contribution we can make through the careful use of language? Please designers, don’t just hold yourself to a writerly standard; invite and demand all of us writers to meet your standards of design.
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As a designer and graduate student speaking from experience, I believe that the craft of writing is largely dismissed in a large number of undergraduate programs - not just design oriented curricula - as an unnecessary skill lying outside the scope of what constitutes a relevant skill-set. However, in rapidly evolving age of information, not knowing how to write concisely and effectively can cripple your own personal and professional growth. I'm so happy to see more classes like this being offered.
Another great book, in addition to The Elements of Style, is: On Writing Well, 25th Anniversary: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction -
I believe in many visual arts programs thinking and thinking visually is stressed, but not enough with writing because most traditional ad firms have had copywriters whom designers worked and collaborated with. However, in my experience as a freelancer and in-house designer with more than one company, clients and management tend to rely heavily on designers to articulate concepts in writing and provide a good chunk if not all of the copy for projects. As a recent grad I was visiting my old professor and he was quite surprised to hear that I, a designer 2 yrs out of school,was writing the copy for my campaigns and ads. I think there is some sort of disconnect between our educators and the realities of today's business world.
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I was very pleased to find this article on your site. As a copywriter, I've worked with designers who understand that, in solving marketing problems, copy and design are inseparable. Coming from the ad agency world, my experience was to work as a team with the AD to concept the ad. Sometimes the designer came up with the headline; sometimes I came up with the visual idea. And as a freelancer, that's still my preferred way to work. I've also worked with designers who handled copy as a design element, not paying any attention to what it said. This often resulted in type that was difficult to read, or line breaks that didn't make sense. I think it's great that writing skills are being emphasized in design schools (however, let's not have designers doing the work of copywriters!). I also agree with the post above which states that this kind of training should start before the college level. But that's another story.
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Writing is an intrinsic part of all human activity. It is essential most fields of work, and more so to design. Designers need to have a good command of language. We can't just focus on visuals and ignore writing. Both form the core of communication.
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Hi Ellen:
So great to see you take this stand for writing. When I teach writing to MFA candidates, I hope to get this point across: Writing does not come naturally. Like design, it is a learned understanding of various systematic ways of organizing thought.
I teach writing the way I was taught to write. As you know, learning to write is a process similar to doing type studies and having them critiqued. Like good type, good writing works across publication platforms. I don't believe introduction of those platforms in class does much to further the beginning writer's knowledge, but it might keep that beginning writer interested enough to continue the quest. Strunk and White is a must. The Moira Kalman version, while entertaining, is not mandatory. Instruction and one-on-one critique is mandatory. Practice is mandatory. XO Natalia -
While writing is obviously necessary for all designers, it should be a key part of their curriculum well before they are out in the working world. In order to become proficient as a verbal communicator, a design student must be required to write about their projects at every opportunity... to investigate, to propose, to explain and to sell their ideas. It is up to the instructor to integrate writing within each assignment. "Practice makes perfect", or at the very least- easy!
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