The Making

Graphic design discourse has been preoccupied of late with the shift from artefact-driven approaches to design towards more strategically oriented models, this re-emphasis on thinking prompted, at least in part, by increased automation in some aspects of design production. Yet, the wholesale move away from making in design curricula is a mistake. Ideas need to be executed and that is far from straightforward, as an encounter with too many poorly made modern books will evidence. The book represents an interesting intersection between the conceptual and the material. Confident in their software skills and lulled into a sense of absolute typographic control, a student can think they have designed a book without having any sense at all of the object they are making. With ever more demands on the curriculum, and so with limited time available, where is the space for book design? This paper takes a moment to reflect on what is being taught and learned in relation to the making of a book, and what might usefully be repositioned and carried forwards in terms of the ongoing education of the designer.