Graphicacy. Thinking, drawing, communicate in the design practice / Graphicacy. Pensiero, disegno, comunicazione nella pratica progettuale

Human beings have an innate capacity for cognitive modeling, and its expression through sketching, drawing, construction, acting out and so on, that is fundamental to human thought according to scholars of different research fields such as the psychologist and art historian Rudolph Arnheim (1954, 1974) or the mechanical engineer and Design Research professor Bruce Archer (1979). The idea that the ability to understand and to communicate using the visual language is a fundamental skill, as literacy and numeracy, has been well stated by the concept of graphicacy. The world was coined by Balchin and Coleman in 1966 – then deepened in the educational studies conducted by Aldrich and Sheppard (2000) – and it means “the ability to understand and present information in the form of sketches, photographs, diagrams, maps, plans, charts, graphs and other non-textual, two-dimensional formats”. To be able to think visually – we could call it Vorstellung or imaginary – and to communicate graphically through drawing – Darstellung or images – are two different and specular aspects on which design processes are based on also outside the traditional boundaries of the academic discipline. They are both considered crucial as innovation, cooperation and social participation tools according to the design definition given by Gui Bonsiepe (1995). Moreover, (visual) design thinking – as proposed by Brown & Kelly (2009), Lawson (2005), Lupton (2011), and Brand (2017) – is a widespread method in need of conceptualisation and communication tools accessible to no-specialists in the field of design. The paper analyses, clusters and presents a critical map of emerging phenomena such as visual facilitation/recording, sketch-noting, design thinking and user experience sketching, doodling or other approaches using the visual language to produce ideas and concepts involving drawing as a shared practice of ideation and representation. Besides, it discusses them in comparison with the culture and the educational issues of the drawing discipline.