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. Students learn the skills of reading and writing academically, developing research interests through becoming familiar with important debates, and growing their own voices as designers. This work is very important for designers as it develops critical thinking skills. 

Discourse around contemporary design is often interdisciplinary, and currently draws on the fields of Cultural Studies, Film Studies, Media Studies and the larger field of Design Studies. Decolonisation is of utmost importance to this module, and students are encouraged to engage with both design and existing research on design in a critical manner, allowing them to question the norms and assumptions that underpin design as a field.

Analogue nostalgia in digital media

This project was done by third year Digital Media Studies students during the second quarter of 2023. Here 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.

Digital 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. They also experimented with film cameras, taking black and white photographs of nostalgic subject matter.