Excavating Practice: An Archaeological Approach to Design

When I first arrived at VCFA, the question I wanted to answer was “What does a graphic designer in rural South Dakota do?” Instead of finding an answer, I found more questions. My thesis considers design practice in terms of archaeology, and borrows ideas from archaeology’s methodology to give structure to an exploratory making process.

Archaeology at its simplest is a method of researching, digging, un-layering, collecting, cataloging, and interpreting. Using previous projects as a framework, Excavating Practice considers the unconscious, local history, personal history, and place as sites for unearthing meaningful fragments and begins to answer the questions of “how” a designer in my place might practice design.