Critically Engaged Civic learning: Graphic Design as a Bridge Between the Classroom and the Local Community

Abstract

This paper discusses outcomes from a collaborative project between the School of Architecture and Community Development at Detroit Mercy and the LIVE6 Alliance, a Detroit non-profit organization focusing on neighborhood revitalization via placemaking and engagement with small businesses. A graduate graphic design course was offered in Winter 2020, and provided an opportunity for architecture students to interact with local community members and business owners to brainstorm ideas about identity, place, and economic development. Through an iterative and open-ended process revolving around frequent conversations and concept proposals, students learned to interpret key identity traits of local businesses, to acknowledge the values they bring to the urban corridor, and applied graphic design knowledge built in the classroom to develop alternative branding design ideas. The pedagogical approach of the course aligns with the frameworks of Critically Engaged Civic Learning (Vincent et al. 2021) and Critical Service learning (Mitchell 2008). Embracing these frameworks in the course helped students understand perspectives of community partners and become more aware of their design agency as co-creators. Forms of co-production and co-authorship were fostered to decolonize the design process, building on authentic relationships and a deeper understanding of branding as a defining way of expressing values of individuals, communities and places. At the urban scale, the loosely coordinated collective work of all teams along the corridor, spurred students to understand graphic design as an urban activator and as an element of placemaking at the scale of the neighborhood. The project was interrupted during online and hybrid learning. This hiatus provided time to reflect on lessons learned, including learning outcomes for students and community perceptions, and directions for future collaborations with LIVE6 Alliance towards a student learning that is centered around the search for a co-constructed design agency.