Towards a Cognitivist Understanding of Communication Design

This book demonstrates the relevance and importance of cognitive linguistics when applied to the analysis and practice of graphic design/communication design.
Phil Jones brings together a diverse range of theory and organizes it in accordance with different stages in the design process. Using examples from contemporary communication design, as well as more familiar selections from the graphic design canon as case studies, this book provides an account of how meanings are made by users, and suggests new strategies for design practice. It seeks convergences between the ways that graphic/communication designers think and talk about their practice and the theories emerging from cognitive science.
This book will be of interest to scholars working in design, graphic design, the philosophy of art and aesthetics, communication studies, and media and film studies.

List of contents

Introduction Section 1: Communication 1.What designers mean by communication 2. Problems with conventional understanding of communication: The conduit metaphor 3. Towards a cognitive approach to communication design 4. Language and visual language: Grammar and vocabulary Section 2: Design 5. Scoping 6. Ideation 1: Abstraction and schematics 7. Ideation 2: Mapping concepts to physical forms 8. Ideation 3: Conceptual frames 9. Form and meaning: Montage, graphic fusion, and hybridity as strategies to evoke meaning vonstruction 10. Blending webs and multimodal communication 11. Speculative design, UI, AI, and extended cognition

About the author

Dr Phil Jones is MA Graphic Design Course Leader at the Arts University Bournemouth.

Product details

• Authors: Phil Jones
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 26.12.2025
• EAN: 9781032214153
• ISBN: 978-1-032-21415-3
• No. of pages: 222
• Weight: 453 g
• Illustrations: schwarz-weiss Illustrationen, Raster,schwarz-weiss
• Series: Routledge Research in Design Studies
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Art history; Graphic Design, History, Media Studies, Linguistics, The arts: general issues, DESIGN / General, DESIGN / Graphic Arts / General, ART / History / General, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Communication Studies, History of art / art & design styles, History of Art, Humanities, Cognition & cognitive psychology, Communication Studies, Neurosciences, Cognition and cognitive psychology, Art forms, The Arts: art forms, The arts: general topics