Pictorial Construction - Pictorial Speech?: Experiential Learning and Co-Design as models for exploring sustainable development issues through Graphic Design principles and techniques

Issues around sustainable development are characterised by the complexity of interactions between social and ecological systems, a complexity that is underrepresented by diagrammatic representation and only partially comprehended through single disciplines. This paper seeks to address this by exploring how models of Co-Design and Experiential Learning can encourage multi-disciplinary engagement with, and reflection upon, issues around sustainable development. Using the Graphic language of ‘Ideograms’, a 45 minute workshop was developed that encouraged participants to create pictorial representations of issues around sustainability of personal significance. The resulting focus group discussion highlighted the iterative processes key to Co-Design, and its effectiveness in encouraging debate and reflection upon sustainability issues.