"All good design is storytelling. All good storytelling is design." (Steven Heller, "Writing and Research for Graphic Designers: A Designer's Manual to Strategic Communication and Presentation", 2012)
"Being able to express, analyze, and report on the issues of design practice demands facts, data, and research. Understanding how to turn information into valuable strategic assets is one of the key talents the design writer and researcher must possess." (Steven Heller, "Writing and Research for Graphic Designers: A Designer's Manual to Strategic Communication and Presentation, 2012)
"Criticism expands knowledge by revealing otherwise hidden meanings. The so-called 'positive' method examines a maker’s intent and rationale; a work’s structure is scrutinized and the factors that inform it are contextualized, providing the basis for balanced analysis and historical categorization. Conversely, the so-called 'negative' method is a kind of fault-finding exposé of flaws in a process or result. The purpose is ostensibly to reinforce a set of standards used to judge success or failure. Both methods are useful in addressing the form and function of design." (Steven Heller, Writing and Research for Graphic Designers: A Designer's Manual to Strategic Communication and Presentation", 2012)
"Designers must tell stories - they must ascribe narrative underpinnings to their designs or the work of others. Indeed, their designs must have a narrative. Context is everything, and writing helps establish the story that design wants to tell. Where once it was enough simply (and it is never simple) to make objects of design, now designers are encouraged to wrap their respective works in blankets of words that add an additional dimension to their output." (Steven Heller, "Writing and Research for Graphic Designers: A Designer's Manual to Strategic Communication and Presentation", 2012)
"Great research is partly police work. You find clues that lead to more clues that lead to a hot trail that leads to conclusive evidence. Often you may instinctively 'feel' something exists somewhere, but finding it is the result of luck and serendipity. You stumble over a document that leads you to an archive that provides you with a key, and so on. Despite that thrill of discovery, having a plan that takes you from point A to point B is useful." (Steven Heller, "Writing and Research for Graphic Designers: A Designer's Manual to Strategic Communication and Presentation", 2012)
"Indeed, design 'problem solving' requires many word and visual skills; how else can designers make those proverbial pictures that speak a thousand words? Often an image, glyph, or mark sparks as much understanding as any combination of words, sentences, or paragraphs - even more so. This accounts for why designing logos and trademarks is so valuable to business and so lucrative for some designers. Yet just as often, design is the frame that showcases words, and illustration illuminates them. Today, designers must master the visual and verbal. With increasing multimedia communication platforms opening all the time, reading and writing and, more than ever, research (a third imperative skill), are the designer’s essential three R’s." (Steven Heller, "Writing and Research for Graphic Designers: A Designer's Manual to Strategic Communication and Presentation", 2012)
"Learning comes from doing. One must write every day, even twice a day, to get the feel of words, the tenor of voice and a sense of flow. Writing theory is fine, but without the hands-on experience, without reading what is written - outloud to oneself - writing as an extension of the writer is impossible to achieve." (Steven Heller, "Writing and Research for Graphic Designers: A Designer's Manual to Strategic Communication and Presentation", 2012)
"Leading your reader to the watering hole will come with experience. You don’t want to get too far ahead of the reader, but you don’t want to fall behind the reader’s expectations. And remember, an audience - the reader - is not monolithic; your target audience has different levels of understanding, comprehension, and need. Use your voice judiciously to bring your readers along with you." (Steven Heller, "Writing and Research for Graphic Designers: A Designer's Manual to Strategic Communication and Presentation", 2012)
"Nonetheless, storytelling and narrative are essential to the design writing process. Without story - or plot, if you will - what have you got? Even a factual business report can tell a tale, albeit often in a neutral manner. Not all stories have to be dramatic or melodramatic. Storytelling is simply the expres sion of something you, as the writer, believe is of interest to you, as the reader. Indeed, you may well be representative of your average reader." (Steven Heller, "Writing and Research for Graphic Designers: A Designer's Manual to Strategic Communication and Presentation", 2012)
"Reading offers two obvious rewards. First is seeing how others write. Sampling mannerisms, styles, structural forms, and more will allow you to test your own abilities and deter mine a comfortable writing technique. Second, of course, is information. There are various ways to research and develop content, and reading is fundamental in all of them. Once you have established good reading habits, you are just about ready to write on your own and, with practice, in your own voice." (Steven Heller,"Writing and Research for Graphic Designers: A Designer's Manual to Strategic Communication and Presentation", 2012)
"There is no reason why criticism has to follow set paths. Analysis of the designed world can, and should, take visual forms." (Steven Heller, "Writing and Research for Graphic Designers: A Designer's Manual to Strategic Communication and Presentation", 2012)
"Write the way you design. If you are a generalist designer, unfettered by a specific style, then follow that method. If you have a particular visual or conceptual stylistic leaning, then your writing voice might echo that. If you decide your design and writing sides are best when they are separate, then you will find the essential balance. But just as you never design without purpose, never write without it either. Your writing should be informative, enjoyable, perhaps even entertaining. The role of the voice is to ensure that your content does these things, and more." (Steven Heller, "Writing and Research for Graphic Designers: A Designer's Manual to Strategic Communication and Presentation", 2012)
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