Study Task 03: Defining The Brief

Produce 1 x A3 design sheet that defines and outlines your research question and the design brief. Your sheet must address the following: 


1. Is it viable? - Using this weeks lecture (Proposing a research question) answer the following questions in relation to your research question: 

I believe my proposing research question ('How important is style to Graphic Design for successful advertising, particularly on social media platforms?')  is workable for a good essay argument. 

• What is there to study (ontology)? 
• Advertising in social media 
• The function of Graphics in advertising
• Style within advertising 
• Style has to be appropriate to the target audience

• How can we know about it (epistemology)? 
• Through different types of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, instagram etc.) 
• Online trends, popular searches 

• How do we study it (methodology)?
• Doing a survey 
• Websites 
• Books 
• Videos (Youtube)

2. Defining the design problem - Whilst your research question should provide opportunities for both contextual/theoretical research and practical research, you need to ensure that there is an obvious design problem to resolve/explore. 

• For example, your research may focus on branding and politics therefore your design problem would be: a political party requires a logo and brand strategy for an up-coming election.
• Advertising campaigns 
• Companies which work on advertising 
• Apple products - iPhone

3. "Client" needs or requirements - If there is a specific client or organisation or individual who you will be producing this work for (hypothetically) then you should take this opportunity to address any needs or requirements they may have. Similarly, if there is no obvious client needs then you should outline any specific requirements that will guide the project forward.

• Possibly Apple products, as graphic design is not really focus on it is only the product which is really focal point.

4. Audience - Through defining the brief you should consider carefully who you are designing for and what implications this will have for the project (this can be tentative at this stage as audience research will offer further clarity).

• Target audience that I will be directing to, will be the type of audience who are into their trends and love their designer brands.  

5. Mandatory requirements - Here you should outline (again, tentatively at this stage) what the mandatory requirements of the brief are. For example, adverts must include the slogan "just do it" or design outcomes must include the company logo or Typeface designs must be functional yet contemporary.

• Slogan for an existing or new brand for advertising 
• Rebranding a logo for a current one 
• Using a different typeface making the advert more distinct and recognisable 
• Creating an advertising campaign 

For my chosen research question, I have decide to write about...

'How important is style to Graphic Design for successful advertising, particularly on social media platforms?'

Then I will discuss the following: 

• What is the function of Graphics in advertising - to communicate successfully? 
• What are the key components of Graphic advertising? 
• What is style? Does it have a purpose? 
• Style has to be appropriate to the target audience? 
• Maximise impact? 
• How important is style to successful advertising on media platforms where advertising has to have more immediate effect and is competing for attention
• Current trends - fonts and images 
• Contemporary design styles - examples to illustrate the above - e.g Apple for iPhones. 
• How design is not an important factor, it is how it is used and presented. 

Studio Brief 02 - Visual Investigation

Based on research question established in Studio Brief 01 in relation to one of the core CoP themes (Politics, Society, Culture, History and Technology) and extending from your critical writing brief you will produce a visual investigation exploring and applying the use(s) of one of the following graphic practices: 

• Typography & Type design 
• Advertising / Public awareness 
• Branding & Logo design 
• Editorial design 
• Design for screen 
• Print making 

It is significant to choose a graphic discipline that works well with your chosen theme and subsequently your critical writing. 

With support from your tutors you will develop a graphic design response to your research question that is informed by your critical writing and research. The emphasis ion this project is very much about practical research and exploration and as such you will consider the role of research and critical awareness throughout each stage of the design process. 

The following stages have been outlined to guide your visual investigation. The outcomes for each stage will be in the form of design sheets that summarise and explain your approach and results from each stage. 

1. Defining the Brief: Problem definition/analysis (1 A3 Design sheet) 

Necessity - State what the issuer is and where is derives from, Explain why the issue is something that can be resolved using visual communication. State what needs to be communicated (essential and desirable). Is there a (hypothetical) client? Who and Why? Is there a target audience? Who and why? 

2. Research: Visual research/analysis (1 A3 Design sheet) 

Necessity - At least 3 relevant visual examples. Each image should be accompanied by a short analysis / explanation. 

Contextual research (links to theoretical research) (1 A3 design sheet) 

Necessity - Any relevant information about: Client background, Competitors, Industry, Scene, Culture and Mode of communication. Must include at least 3 references to reading/research done for Studio Brief 01. 

Target audience research (1 A3 design sheet) 

Necessity - Relevant information about demographics (sex, age group, job, class, location, etc.) Information about psychographics (gender, sexuality, personality, taste, interests, etc.). Write 3x persona profile that represent "model" target users. 

3. Idea Generation: Idea generation / material considerations (1 A3 design sheet) 

Necessity - At least 20 rough ideas/scamp/thumbnail solutions to the problem. Where applicable your ideas should be accompanied by necessary material considerations (production methods, medium, scale, etc.) including a discussion of the impact of material decisions. 

4. Prototype solutions: 3x graphic prototypes (3 proposed solutions) (3 A3 design sheets) 

Necessity - 3x proposed solutions derived from idea generation stage. Visualisations can be fairly rough at this stage by they must be accompanied by an explanation/justification in reference to the original problem/brief. At this stage it will be necessary to seek feedback on your proposed ideas from peers and tutors. Feedback will help to direct your developments.  

5. Development: Developments to chosen prototype (3 A3 design sheets) 

Necessity - You must show at least 3 iterative stages to the visual development of your prototype. Each stage should bet accompanied by a brief evaluation which leads logically to the next development. Developments should be address: colour, layout, image choices, type choices, materials, scale, etc. all of which should be justified in relation to the brief / client / audience. 

6. Outcomes: Outcomes / evaluating results (1 A3 design sheet)

Necessity - Evidence of your final outcome/solution. You must critically explain / justify your solution in reference to the brief / audience. You must also explain how your final solution relates to your critical writing/research using at least 3 references. 

7. Production / Distribution / Reception: Production and Distribution considerations (3 A3 design sheet) 

Necessity - Outline, justify and explain production methods and considerations. Consider how how production methods interacts with communication. Outline, justify and explain distribution considerations - how will your design be distribution to the best attract the right audience? You must also demonstrate an awareness of how your designs will be received by your target audience - this may mean "testing" your work in context or talking to consumers in focus group. 

The written content of your design sheets need not be any more than a short passage or even bullet points. You are not being assessed on your written language in this brief as such but more so your ability to describe and explain your design process and approach to research using images and words.

Seminar sessions will explore the role of research and appropriate research methods through each of the graphic design disciplines and throughout each stage of the design process. These skills are transferable and should be applied consistently across all modules at level 5.

Context of practice 2 will give you the critical skills necessary to develop your own independent design practice and begin to operate within the creative industries.

Context of practice 2 will also adequately prepare you for Context of practice 3 and level 6 which will be an extensive, independent research project. 

Study Task 02: Parody & Pastiche Essay

Study Task 02: Write a 300 (ish) word summary of parody and pastiche according to Jameson and Hutcheon these theories to at least 2 examples of Graphic Design (one from this session and one found yourself). 

Between the two different texts, parody and pastiche has impacted the art industry. This is shown between the two arguments of a modernist and a postmodernist side. Fredric  Jameson and Linda Hutcheon explore these theories of the matters of parody and pastiche.

In Jameson's, "Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" is what he calls "the waning of affect". When we look at modern painting with human figures we will most often find in them a human expression which reflects and inner experience, such as in Edvard Munch's "The Scream" which conveys the modern experience of alienation and anxiety. In contrast, Jameson holds to that in postmodern art feelings wane (therefore "the waning of affect").

Pastiche is one of the main characteristics of cultural production in the age of postmodernism as Jameson states. The existence of an independent subject was an essential part of artistic as cultural production in the modern times. It allows the artist to have a subject for the purpose of addressing his consumer as subject and thus to affect him. But with the waning of affect the artist's unique individuality, one a founding principle, has been reduced in the postmodern age to balance and to objectifying form of communication. With the fragmentation of subjectivity, it is no longer clear what postmodern artists and authors are supposed to do beside appealing to the past, to the imitation of dead styles, an "empty parody" without any deep or hidden meanings, a parody that Jameson names pastiche.


Pastiche, like parody, is the imitation of some unique style, but it is an empty neutral practice which lacks the intension and "say" of parody. The postmodern artist is reduced to pastiche because he cannot create new aesthetic forms, he can only copy old ones without creating any new meanings. Pastiches leads to what is referred to in architectural history as "historicism" which is acknowledged to Jameson is a random cannibalism of past styles. This cannibalism, pastiche, in now apparent in all spheres of cultural production but reaches its personification in the whole world. This could be how American's are centred in television and Hollywood culture.


When the past is being represent through pastiche the result is a "lost of historicalness". Jameson calls this type of postmodern history "pop history" (a history founded on the pop images produces by commercial culture). One of the manifestations of this pastiche pop history are nostalgic or retro films and books which present the appearance of an historical account when in fact these are only our own superficial stereotypes applied to times which are no longer accessible to us. Pastiche, then, is the only mode of cultural production allowed by postmodernism.

In Hutcheon's, parody, the one of the main features that distinguishes postmodernism from modernism is the declarative "takes the form of self-conscious, self-contradictory, self-undermining statement". One way of creating this contradictory aspect on any statement is the use of parody: citing a convention only to make fun of it. As Hutcheon explains, "Parody is often called ironic quotation, pastiche, appropriation, or intertextuality which is usually considered central to postmodernism, both by its detractors and its defenders". Compared to Jameson's statement, who considers such postmodern parody as a symptom of the age, one way in which we have lost our connection to the past and to effective political critique. Hutcheon then argues that "through a double process of installing and ironizing, parody signals how present representations come from past ones and what ideological consequences derive from both continuity and difference". Hutcheon also sets herself against the prevailing view among many postmodern theorists: "The prevailing interpretation is that postmodernism offers a value-free, decorative, de-historicised quotation of past forms and that this is a most apt mode for a culture like our own that is oversaturated with images. Furthermore, Hutcheon adds on, instead, that such an ironic stance on representation, genre, and ideology serves to politicise representation, illustrating the ways that interpretation is ultimately ideological. Parody de-doxifies it and unsettles all doxa, all accepted beliefs and ideologies. Rather than see this ironic stance as "some infinite regress into textuality". Hutcheon values the resistance in such postmodern works to totalising solutions to society's contradictions; she values postmodernism's willingness to question all ideological positions, all claims to ultimate truth.

Fredric Jameson's 

Pastiche - an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period. 

Parody - an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.

Parody - "Ulterior motives" - challenging capitalism - through humour and aggression. Challenging the establishment. 

Pastiche - "Speech in a dead language" - extracting signs from the original place in time and ultimately their meaning. Gone/over. The original has a meaning, taking it away becomes mute. 

Examples: 

Films - 1950s youth culture. 

Linda Hutcheon

Parody—often called ironic quotation, pastiche, appropriation, or intertextuality—is usually considered central to postmodernism, both by its detractors and its defenders"

Hutcheon argues that "through a double process of installing and ironizing, parody signals how present representations come from past ones and what ideological consequences derive from both continuity and difference"

Post modernism, "Postmodernism in art today - be it in video, dance, literature, painting, music, architecture, or nay other form - seems to be art marked primarily by a internalised investigation of nature, the limits, and the possibilities of the language or discourse of art.

"Parody & Pastiche are the same" 

The paradox of postmodernist and jameson both believe, but rather that it can and does lead to a vision of interconnectedness: illuminating itself, the art work simultaneously casts light on the workings of aesthetic conceptualisation on..... it is true? 

enforces how we look at our situation, the way we communicate etc. Help to criticise it.

Stranger & Stranger - Product designers

- Influence to Victorian print advertising/typography. 

- Early modernism and wartime poster designs. 

Betty's Tea Room York - Packaging design
Bettys was founded by Frederick Belmont, a Swiss baker and confectioner who came to England in search of opportunities to develop his craft skills. He opened his first Café Tea Rooms in Harrogate in 1919 and named it 'Bettys'. The reason why remains a mystery to this day.

In the 1920s Frederick opened a Craft Bakery in Harrogate, complete with its own orchard. Thanks to the new Bakery, Frederick was able to open Bettys branches in other Yorkshire towns including a flagship café in York, the design of which was inspired by the magnificent Queen Mary Cruise liner. His York tea rooms became particularly popular during the war years when the basement 'Bettys Bar' became the favourite destination of the hundreds of American and Canadian 'Bomber Boys' stationed around York. 'Bettys Mirror', on which many of them engraved their signatures with a diamond pen, still hangs in the branch today.

Packaging design is influence by the 'Magnificent Queen Mary Cruiser Liner' which incorporates a 1920's trend, therefore after world war one. These packaging uses very victorian designs, lettering is in serifs and patterns are very regal. Here are some images below of this kind of style but with a modern twist. 

Study Task 01: Level 5 Triangulation | Reading Texts

In this session, I had to look at 3 Sources and to compare, contrast and link them together. 

By reading the following sources carefully: 

• 'L Mulvey - Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' - Text A 
• 'J Storey - Cultural Theory and Popular Culture' - Text B
• 'R Dyer - Stars' - Text C

I need to produce the following of short pieces of academic writing based on the texts above. 

1) What kind of document is it? Who is the author? 
2) In summary, what is being discussed/argued? 6 points for the primary article and 3 for each of the others. 
3) What is the article in reference to?

• Laura Mulvey, primary document collection of analytical essays. - essay opinion about women in cinema 
• Man gaze, Women objectified, traditional roles of women, Heterosexuals, male controls women fantasy, patriarchal, films reproduced as accurately as possible so called natural conditions of human natures. 
• Male gazes 

• John Storey - Male desires vs castration - secondary summary. 
• Psychological theorist - freud 
• Gaining pleasure from the sexualisation of women 
• Un - biased summary of original text. 
• In reference to other 2 texts. 

• Richard Dyer - Biased own document/experience. 
• Stars and Spectators 
• Criticism of Mulvey's work. 
• Ways in which males are objectified. 
• Analysis of picnic & the ways in which the characters (males) are sexualised. 
• Stars profiles. 
• Homosexual views. 

Triangulation - 300 words/summary

1) What is the relationship between the writers?

• All objectify women/men in a visual sexual way. 
• Most about the male gazes and women are sexual desires. 

2) Does one text help to highlight information in the primary? 

• Yes Text A. Which points? The main argument of how patriarchal is explained through the use of visual images within cinematic screens. 

3) Are there any criticises? There are some arguments between the texts due to how men are just as objectified as women. In the media, e.g: cinema, TV etc. What are they? (quotes from texts) How are justified? One counter balances the other texts points. Text C neutralises the other two texts. 

Triangulation Summary

In these three texts (A,B,C) triangulate how patriarchy is depicted within society's attitude towards men/women specifically in the media. Text A, called 'Visual Pleasure & Narrative Cinema' by Laura Mulvey which is the Primary document of this main triangulation, within this document demonstrates the function of woman in forming the patriarchal unconscious is  two elements. Women stand in patriarchal culture as a sign physical form for the male other, by a women being this symbolic object. This creates an order in which a man can dwell his phantasies and obsessions through expressive command by resplendently them on an image of the women still trapped in her place. There is also an unconscious of a patriarchal society that has constructed in a film format. This is how to battle agains the unconscious structure of the language of the patriarchy. The important problems for the female unconscious which is little bit relevant to the psychoanalytic theory: 'the sexing of the female infant and her relationship to the symbolic, the sexually mature woman as non-mother, maternity outside the signification of the phallus, the vagina. In a cinematic aspects, it has changed over the last decades, as technological advances have changed the economic conditions of cinematic production, in a more capital and democratic. It is now seen in a more unchallenged, mainstream film coded the erotic into the language of the dominant patriarchal order. 

In the chapter, 'Women as Image, Man as Bearer if of the look. Women are ordered by a sexual imbalance in the world, they are only a pleasure in looking which has been split between an active male and a passive female. Woman have an a traditional exhibitionist role as they are only displayed as a sexual object. This is strengthened by a quote by Budd Boetticher, "What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance.” This is why traditionally, the women is portrayed in two different ways: as an erotic object for the characters within the screen story & as an erotic object for the spectator when the camera moves in various angles. This then shifts tension between between looks on each side of the screen. In the other hand, in a male prospective there is a spilt between spectacle and narrative that support's the man's role as the active one of making the story move on. Films are usually structured with an order of having a man controlling figure, in this case the audience will immediately identify the male being the lead protagonist. Because of this character in the story, he can make things happen and control events better than the subject/spectators. For example, that of the spectator in direct scopophilic contact with the female form displayed for his enjoyment & that of the spectator fascinated with the image of his like set in an illusion of natural space, and through him gaining control and possession of the woman. 

In Text B, 'Cultural Theory and Popular Culture' by John Storey which is a secondary summary and it has a chapter about 'Gender & Sexuality'. Since the 1980s, gender has been another source of cultural analysis, with feminism becoming a guiding theoretical process. Storey identifies four different forms of feminism: radical (female oppression is the result of male patriarchy), Marxist (females are oppressed by capitalism), Liberal (males are prejudiced against women and these prejudices are seen in law and other outgrowths of society) and dual-systems (the oppression of women comes as a result of both patriarchy and capitalism); moreover, much of the analysis of popular culture has suggested that men and women have a specific relationship to culture that is different from each other. However,  Mulvey's notion of the "male gaze" was nonetheless influential in early feminist cinema studies, contemporary scholars have begun to challenge it. But, Storey points out studies that argue that these magazines still reflect a capitalist/patriarchal view of what womanhood is and what sort of goals a woman should aspire to through the generation of desire. The issue, Storey argues, is that these ideas are built around an idealised "mythical individual woman" that does not have to conform to the same constraints as actual women.

Within Text C, 'Stars' by Richard Dyer which is a biased own document/experience. Which also criticises of Mulvey's work. But focuses on both a females and males being the sexual object and stars/idols are perceived in media. His star theory is the idea that icons and celebrities are manufactured by institutions for financial gain. He believes that stars are constructed to represent 'real people' experiencing real emotions. Stars are manufactured by the music industry to serve a purpose; to make money out of audience, who respond to various elements of a star’s personality by buying records and becoming fans. The theory is spilt into three sections: Audiences and Institutions, Constitutions and Hegemony. 

Audience and Institutions - Stars are made for money purposes alone. Increasing the brand identity benefits the institution as they become a household name increasing sales in all of the media platforms they are in. 

Constitutions - This is more or less the same as the audience and institution part of his theory.

Hegemony - This is also know as 'culture'. It is the idea that the audience relates to the star because they have a feature they the share or admire with the star. Some fans may attempt to replicate the star in their behavior, what they and what they do. But this could also be a negative impact as some stars often are heavy drinkers and drug abusers. Stars represent shared cultural values and attitudes, and promote a certain ideology. Audience interest in these values enhances their 'star quality', and it is through conveying beliefs, ideas and opinions outside music that performers help create their star character to their fans. A star may start a fashion trend, with masses of fans copying their hairstyle and clothing. Stars benefit from cultural discourse. 

Therefore, Dyer says that stars are created to an audience so they can relate to them. Stars are made to be consumed and made money from, they are 'personas' not real people. Pop stars often have a persona so people can relate to them, it also helps if they have a USP (unique selling proposition) so an audience can copy off them and creates an ideology based on the stars. As Dyer has quoted "A star is an image not a real person that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (e.g advertising magazine, films and music etc)". Stars are made and groomed to meet the expectations of an audience, we can link this to Mulvey's theory of the 'male gaze' as being a star comes with expectations and one of these expectations is to be looked at as a desirable person (does not matter if male of female). A star is an image presented to an audience. 

COP 2: The Flipped Classroom - Lecture 01

• Jacques Ranciere - French Theorist 
• The Ignorant Schoolmaster book
• Mai68 Debut D'une Lutte Prolongee 
• France May '68 
• A volatile period of revolutionary civil unrest 
• General strikes and occupations of factories and universities 
• Spontaneous and wild cat
• Catalysed by student actin at the sorbonne, which was occupied and declared as an autonomous people's university "open all day and night, at all times, to all workers"
• Anti-authoritarian and radical against disciplinary specialisation and 'eduction as initiation'. 
• Egalite! Liberté! Sexualité!
• Education for all and even student wages! 
• Education for all classes. Society should support this!
• L'atelier Populaire (Formed following the occupation of L'cole de Beux Arts (school of fine Arts) on May 14th 
• Students did revolution. 
• Re figure the world by politics - connected by the same struggle 
• The posters of the screen printing are weapons! Revolutionary struggles - factory labours. 
• Not part of a sell, symbol of Peace!! 
• Ranciere was one of the students part of the revolution. 
• Ranciere's tutor called Louis Althusser - book: Ideology and Ideological state apparatus' in Lenini & philosophy (1971) 
• Control us by mentally: religion, family etc. 
• The SCHOOL ideological. Grid of the world. 
• Fear of failure. 
• Rejecting society and doing your own thing. 
• Social system keeps you in your place. 
• Sensible - argument - expect to feel until we have discovered it. Feeling, emotions etc. 
• The Distribution of the Sensible.
• Joseph Jacotot 1770-1840
• Flemish students wrote better french than his previous french students. 
• Teaching is not about helping. 
• Teacher need the students not the other way round. 
• Radical approach.

Studio Brief 01 - Critical Analysis

STUDIO BRIEF 01 - CRITICAL ANALYSIS


For this Studio Brief we have to write a 3000 word essay and practical work that relates. This brief provides further opportunity to develop your academic research and writing skills whilst engaging with more complex theories and concepts relevant to Graphic Design. As such, you will produce a 3000 word essay in relation to one of the core


Context of Practice themes (politics, society, culture, history, technology and aesthetics) and with a focus of your choosing. While Context of Practice 1 gave you an introduction to academic research and writing, this brief will allow you to apply these skills in exploring a more specific aspect of your practice in detail.


The essay will be made up from the following sections:

Introduction (500 words) - This must outline the essay's central research question or questions, their relation to the module theme, a justification of your approach, and an explanation of why this topic is important for practitioners within your subject discipline.

Main Body (2000 words) - This section will draw upon AT LEAST FOUR different academic sources to develop a coherent argument in response to research question or questions outlined in the introduction.

This section should demonstrate CRITICAL, CULTURAL, REFLECTIVE, AND CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS, including an ability to TRIANGULATE between research sources and examples of practice. It should also include some assessment of the validity and reliability of the sources you are using.

The specific structure of the Main Body can be negotiated with your tutor but, as a minimum, this section needs to include:

A Critical Analysis of Source Material (500 words min) - A triangulated appraisal of the argument from one key text, or source of evidence, with reference to the work of others.


A Cultural / Contextual Analysis of Practice (500 words min) - This section should relate the critical analysis of source material to an example, or examples, of works from your own subject discipline.

This analysis should also highlight important cultural factors (socio-cultural patterns, prejudices, attitudes, conventions, norms) and contextual factors (historical events, location, legislation) that effect the meaning, intention, or interpretation of your chosen examples. Employ wider research if necessary to uncover this information.

A Reflective Evaluation of Practice (500 words min) - This section should relate the critical analysis of source material and the cultural / contextual analysis of practice to personal insights from your own subject discipline. 

This may involve relating the work of others to developmental work you have made during Studio Brief 2: Visual Research. Alternatively, it may involve discussing what implications the discussions of the two previous sections have for your discipline in general. Importantly, any points you make here need to be based on evidence. Avoid supposition and the purely subjective. Try to avoid first person writing and maintain a formal academic tone.

Conclusion (500 words) - This must clearly answer the essay's central research question or questions, drawing clear conclusions from these answers based on evidence raised within the Main Body. It should outline how your research has helped develop your knowledge of your chosen subject theme, and also indicate any implications of these conclusions for your subject discipline and, perhaps, society in general. Finally, your conclusion should comment on how these conclusions relate to the work you have undertaken in Studio Brief 2: Visual Research.

Establishing a research question that we can choose:


Politics - party politics, elections, democracy, current affairs, protest, dissent, industrial action, public awareness, economy, socialism, capitalism, propaganda / public relations.

Society - class, lifestyle, gender relations, LGBT, race relations, psychology, consumerism, education, social groups, subculture, communities, charity, sustainability, mass media.

Culture - High brow / low brow, subcultures, music, film, popular culture, internet, lifestyle, tourism, exhibitions.

History - Modernism, postmodernism, pastiche, trends, movements, historical periods, chronology

Technology – Print production, mass communication, smart technology, screen based design, interface, user experience, data, privacy, mass media.

Aesthetics – Modernism, new typographic style, postmodernism, grunge type, trends, trendiest, kitsch, cute. 

Must focus on one the CoP themes and how it relates to graphic design. However, these themes are very broad so your question should explore a much more specific aspect of one of these. Your research question should be open-ended and provide ample opportunity for critics discussion / debate. Your research question will be the basis for both your written piece and your practical investigation.