Abstract: This article is grounded in an exploration conducted by the author on publishing as a platform that brings intercultural communication, pluralism, graphic design and typography into productive dialogue with each other through engaged (in social and political issues; in creative, educational, and critical practice) and situated (local communities; international networks of editors, translators, designers, illustrators, publishers, and readers) design research frameworks and practices. This has resulted in an exploration of spaces in which new kinds of documents can be created, with, by and for marginalized publics, and, conversely, how the production of new texts and images creates spaces that enable emancipatory, temporary, or subversive practices to occur that suggest new directions for the practice of typography and typographic frameworks. This exploration through design research and practice, is framed by the author’s own context, as that of a South Asian designer and researcher, working in the Global North.

Some of the initial thinking in this article was explored in a chapter for The Routledge Companion to Design Research — 2nd Edition. The article takes a holistic, post-disciplinary approach to graphic design and typography aiming to challenge notions of graphic design as purely aesthetic or craft-based, or as concerns of form and function. It calls for a shift in considering the wider politics and contributions of visual language — graphic design and typography specifically — to societal change. Additionally, it reframes research-led practices (and thereby visual language and typography), not as an elite activity but as a human practice that emerges as curiosity and intent. Such an approach is critical to undertake considering a global health crisis, climate emergency and with issues of conflict and social injustice where communication plays a pivotal role. The article concludes that how we approach design research and practice needs to be rethought so that it makes a meaningful contribution to planetary issues.

Implications for practice: A holistic, post-disciplinary approach to graphic design and typographic research can challenge notions of graphic design as purely aesthetic, or as concerns of form and function, and speak to the shift needed in considering the wider politics and contributions of graphic design to societal change. Latin (Western) approaches to typography offer a singular view of typography as functional and rational. However, pluralistic approaches make more visible, through design and documentation, a broader approach to typography which acknowledges typography’s link to language, as it is spoken, written, and read both culturally as well as materially. The history of the book which still looks primarily at the codex, needs to encompass the histories that are beyond the codex, to manuscripts, scrolls and other “book” traditions which are rarely documented or acknowledged. Where little evidence exists, historical practices can provide guidance for contemporary design frameworks and guidelines. With each of these contexts, research revealed approaches to similar design problems by designers, typographers and publishers in the past. Speaking to the contribution of practice, we must take an approach that suggests that we can design the means through which design happens, challenging the concepts, behaviors, and means of production as well as designing form.