In this blogpost, I want to sum up what I take away from the article about intercultural design competence. IDC is a continual process of cultural learning and understanding. A designer needs to be patient, because it may take some time. I think this graphic is a good visualization of the main points of the article:
Figure 2: A Summary of Intercultural Design Competence. Source: Image by McMullen
This article inspired me to do more research in the field, also because it mentions that there is not much literature out there that connects graphic design with culture. It might be a niche which I find tremendously interesting. But I think for my master thesis, I need to choose a specific aspect of it. I’m not sure yet what it will be, but I will find out when doing more research.
What I also found interesting was that most of the graphic designer who work in the intercultural field, have a personal connection to it, because they have a different cultural background or travel a lot. It reminds me of myself, because the time I spent abroad doing my exchange semester in England, was the first time I came in direct contact with people from other parts of the world and became friends with them. This is where I found out how enriching these connections are and how much you can personally grow from these experiences.
I also liked the research approach that was used in this article, combining literature review and interviews with graphic designers. This might also be useful for my master thesis.
