Design Studies

Design Studies is an interdisciplinary theory subject subscribed to by students of design at FADA. The subject aims to develop students’ research skills in the fields of design and art, not solely as practitioners but also as researchers with a view to theoretically and conceptually engaging with larger academic discourses that influence design and how it is understood locally, and internationally. Discourse around design is situated within the fields of cultural studies, film studies, media studies and design studies, and these (among others) are drawn upon to develop students’ critical thinking in a scaffolded manner. Decolonisation is of utmost importance to this module, and as such students are encouraged to engage with both design and existing research on design in a critical manner.

Analogue nostalgia in digital media

This project is the work done by third year Design Studies students during the second quarter of 2025. The project ran in the FADA Gallery with the exhibition In Black and White: the FADA Photo Booth. The exhibition served as a workshop space where students interacted with photography by Santu Mofokeng, Ruth Seopedi Motau, Sabelo Mlangeni, Lebohang Kganye and Andile Bala, and also with student work from previous years. Students also experimented with film cameras, taking black and white photographs of nostalgic subject matter. Along with intensive investigation and interaction with the exhibition, students engaged with the emerging field of nostalgia studies, and in particular with the concept of analogue nostalgia. This is a phenomenon in digital media, where analogue effects are emulated in order to sate a nostalgia for the physicality and artefactual character of analogue media in contemporary society. Media users employ filters and digital effects to make photographs appear older than they are, evoking nostalgia for times past and for the media of the past, such as film cameras. Students referred to research by prominent scholars in the field: Elena Caoduro and Katharina Niemeyer.

Sources consulted: 

Caoduro, E. 2014. Photo filter apps: understanding analogue nostalgia in the new media ecology. Networking knowledge 7(2): 67-82.  

Niemeyer, K. 2016. Digital nostalgia. Media Development 4: 27-30.