The practice and the community: a proposition for the possible contribution of communication design to public space

The practice of communication design has developed from a visual-communication service industry into a multi-facetted profession, directly involved with the maintenance and creation of social and cultural capital. The ancestry of communication design has led to its continued perception as a neutral tool for the achievement of communication.<br><br>This research project aims to investigate the possible contributions of communication design as a practice, if it were to re-align its goals towards supporting and facilitating the community within which it is practiced.<br><br>This research project is about the communication designer and the communities within which they practice: clients; target markets; companies; managers; neighbourhood groups; groups in a particular place and time; communities of practitioners; and emergent or yet to emerge communities.<br><br>The project investigates designer agency and the ways for a communication designer to work holistically within communities: being or becoming part of them; working through and with them toward the achievement of communication goals. As much as it is about communicating, it is also about community.<br><br>It is about designers working as conduits, facilitating and enabling the communities of their practice to find expression. It is about a democratisation of communication design authorship and power.<br><br>It is about the design process as an educational process - all parts and participants within a design projects' community learning and teaching simultaneously.<br><br>The research project encompasses a series of component projects, across a range of different media, using a practice-led-research framework and a reflective practitioner methodology as the key investigative tool.