In a Manner of Reading Design - The Blind Spot

In a Manner of Reading Design – The Blind Spot was a practice-based research project that investigated how implicit knowledge, assumptions, and normative frameworks shape perception and meaning in graphic design. The project started from the premise that design, as a planned action, always operates at the intersection of theory and practice. Through everyday objects, visual systems, and mediated forms, design actively participates in shaping social realities. Yet, precisely because it is so embedded in daily life, design often remains unreflected — and risks affirming dominant norms rather than questioning them. 

The project examined how graphic design can develop its own critical discourse in order to address these conditions. Drawing on the metaphor of the “blind spot,” the research focuses on what remains implicit, unnoticed, or taken for granted in processes of perception, interpretation, and design decision-making. Rather than claiming an objective or neutral position, the project explicitly engages with the impossibility of unbiased perspectives. It understands design as a relational practice that is dependent on other viewpoints, readings, and forms of knowledge. The research unfolds through publishing, writing, editing, and discursive formats, creating spaces for debate and reflection in which diverse voices and positions can encounter each other.