Getting Started & Practical Tools
“There are countless ways to research design. What matters most is finding what works for you.”
By the Design Research, Writing and Criticism Class of 2023
Nailing a hammer can feel like an impossible task. But the beauty of the challenge lies in the opportunity to get creative: Take a tool and use it the “wrong” way. Question everything. Embrace the unexpected. Break shit. Fix it — but leave the cracks. Discover your process.
There are countless ways to research design. What matters most is finding what works for you. In this manual, we’ve collected all sorts of how-tos. By sharing our experience–learning to write and writing to learn–we hope you’ll not only enjoy our wide-ranging topics, but also gain valuable tools for thinking and writing about design.
STEP ONE: GATHER YOUR TOOLS
Everyone’s process is different. Some are deeply analytical, while others invite your mind to go wild and encourage playful thinking. Certain tools help you see things from a different perspective. Sometimes what you need is a method for slowing down and de-stressing. Crafting your process is about assembling your own toolkit. In the first section of our manual, we’ve gathered the various methods and techniques that shaped our individual approaches to research.
STEP TWO: LEARN FROM OTHERS
You’re never on your own. Everyone has an extended universe, a community that builds ways of thinking together. Teachers and friends of the program offer wisdom and wit in the form of their own how-tos, included in this manual. We cannot thank them enough for their incisive feedback, endless patience, and unwavering encouragement throughout our journey.
STEP THREE: MAKE IT PERSONAL
Now it’s time to do the work. Find what speaks to you. Research is, after all, always personal. Over the past year, we’ve explored how to sell youth culture, how to justify empire, how to draw conclusions, how to dehumanize parenthood, how to re-imagine city life, how to mobilize the labor of love, and even how to stay cool. Ask yourself what matters to you — and why it matters.
By sharing the tools that helped each of us discover our own unique approach to design writing, our aim is to make the creative process of research disarmingly practical. So grab your nail and hammer, and let’s get started.
Edited by Esty Bagos and Ian Beckman Reagan
Designed by Lucas Albrecht
Illustrated by Emily Kwok
Copyedited by Jamie McGhee
Printed by Bestype Printing NYC
The SVA MA in Design Research, Writing and Criticism is a two-semester master’s program that provides instruction in techniques for researching, analyzing, and interpreting design and its cultural and environmental implications. The program combines humanities-oriented critical thinking and journalistic tools to produce writing and editorial content intended to inform and engage broad audiences.
