This seminar takes a close look at how graphic design histories have been written—and how they might be written differently. In order to decenter the familiar Western, white, patriarchal, and often exclusionary narratives that have come to define the field, we will read and discuss essays that offer alternative frameworks and critiques. These texts will accompany our attempt to understand the ideological forces that shaped design discourse in the second half of the 20th century, many of which still echo in design education and practice today.

The seminar sessions will combine conceptual grounding with concrete examples: unpacking terms such as modernism, postmodernism, ideology, and feminism before tracing how they surface in typography, layout, and the broader culture of graphic design.

By approaching graphic design as a historically situated and ideologically charged discipline and practice, the seminar encourages participants to develop a more conscious, critical relationship to the tools and traditions they inherit, and to consider what other histories might be told.