Frauen
im Grafikdesign
The role and visibility of women in gra-phic design are frequently a topic of discussion. While female students make up the majority of students in graphic design degree programmes in German and English speaking countries, they appear to be underrepresented in historiography, present-day reporting, and in industry structures as well as the top positions of the profession. The thesis explores how female design students perceive this discrepancy, how they experience their studies, and what view they have of their professional future. The thesis was realised as a research project using grounded theory methodology.
Missing Women
Taking the information provided in Wikipedia on the gender gap as a starting point, the project traces voids in historiography and current knowledge production. Of the approximately 1.9 million biographical accounts appearing in the online encyclopaedia, only around nineteen percent currently relate to the lives of women. Using the query language Sparql, the Wikidata database was searched for female artists who do not yet have a Wikipedia entry but could potentially be represented. The resulting 42,092-person data set was automatically transferred into a layout that was printed and bound in four volumes.
The theme of the blank space is also present in the design: following the historical model of fore-edge painting, a hidden screen print was realised on the front edge that is only revealed when the pages are fanned out. It shows research that was personally undertaken on the works of female artists, whose works themselves remained mostly invisible in the data on offer.
