Abstract
Prominent design thinking and service design authors promote a collaborative and inclusive design setting called co-design. Co-designing is a creative process where organisations work with the general public on projects. Co-designing activates a broad range of perspectives, experiences and skills within a project so that designers can better understand how people from different backgrounds feel about a product or service problem. This research explores how graphic design has not engaged deeply with its audience as co-design suggests in Perth, Western Australia. Typically, graphic designers have substantial insight into human behaviour because they are constantly examining and creating communications to adjust it. However, this does not mean that graphic designers have intrinsic knowledge around the drivers and aspirations of every project stakeholder. Designing without ‘intrinsic knowledge’ of the people that are affected by our designs is built around assumption. In contrast, co-designing, a common human-centred method of service design, opens a channel for ‘authentic knowledge about people’ as it provides a pathway for intimate, individualised storytelling. Historically graphic design has actively engaged in storytelling using illustrative storytelling methods such as storyboards or comics. Research findings from this study have indicated sequenced visual communications are also effective mediums for storytelling and making sense of complex problems within co-design settings. However, Perth design experts have explained that they are yet to determine an effective co-design methodology for projects of varying sizes particularly smaller projects which usually commence with a call for a single artefact.
