"Mapping with graphic probes method"

THE INTERVIEWS:

After presenting my pilot project at the RNUAL conference at the University of the Arts London, it was time to get back to the second half of the ‘mapping with graphic probes method’, the interviews for the case studies.

The case study entails analyzing three Pakistani indigenous art case studies; Pakistani truck art, Lolly wood cinema-art and political posters. Visual material about each case study is assembled and analyzed to identify what is being communicated and how this operates in the Pakistani visual culture? The aim is to investigate the engagement of indigenous art forms as indigenous visual representation within specific contexts. 

The visual analysis also entails interviews with respondents. Engaging participants shall illustrate contribution of stakeholder engagement in participatory/collaborative processes towards sustainable visual design solutions. The case studies are intended to discover and understand audience perspectives and social phenomena in descriptive and interpretive ways.

The interviews were organised with the professional in the genres under discussion in Pakistan. 

The interviewees  were selected due to their high level of involvement in the identified fields. This method presents a broad view of the past and present Pakistani visual media (design market), and enables to gain a broad-spectrum insight of a ‘Pakistani vernacular design philosophy’.

The intention is to generate primary and first-hand information about the discussed cases. The aim of the interviews is, firstly, to distinguish the cultural influences in the design and production processes relating to media under discussion, through interviewees’ professional experience. Secondly, to classify indigenous visual preferences to be an effective way of understanding the local audience within the visual communication context, and, thirdly, to identify the impact of knowledge/understanding of the intended audience/client on the skills of the designers and the designs generated. 

Conclusively the interviews were employed to discover and understand audience perspectives and socio-cultural phenomena at mass level in descriptive and interpretive ways. So that this knowledge can facilitate development of effective graphic design for advocacy communication in a low literacy context. Semi- structured interviews were conducted and entailed answering questions like:

• What is its purpose of the artifacts under-discussion?  
• Where is it found?
• Is it 2D or 3D? How big is it?  
• Static or in motion?  
• What media are involved?  
• What colours and forms are involved?  
• How is it made and by whom?  
• What images are used, and where are they sourced?  
• How are the images treated, e.g. heroically and larger  
• than life and why?  
• What patterns or other enrichment is used, and where are they sourced?  
• Who makes them, where and how?  
• What qualities are seen in the images and other enrichment?  
• Who is it designed for and is visible to, and in which circumstances? 
• How these media relate to the Pakistani audience? 
• How the knowledge about the target audience impacts the designs created? 
• What are the factors that influence the visuality, popularity and influence of these visual media? 
• How are the  indigenous socio-cultural influences reflected through the designs?

The interviews with the film, truck and political art professional revealed interesting insights. Locating participants whom might be useful, getting in touch with them arranging meetings and then the process of interviewing them, trying to extract relevant information, was challenging but rewarding on conclusion.The whole process involved a lot of organizing and creating links that connected. Interviews were conducted in the city of Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore. During the process of locating the relevant participants and organizing meetings unexpected but interesting insights were gained.

 As I am not working in collaboration with any organization, I found myself on my own when trying to locate and contacting the relevant interviewees’. But once in touch, it took on the snowball effect. All the interviewees' were very accommodating with their time.Their opinions, impressions and experiences were narrated candidly and generously.And they put me in touch with other professionals that they knew in the field that could help get further in-depth insights. Some of them were even kind of enough to arrange my meetings with other relevant people and personally escorted me to them. I found the whole experience to be very encouraging, refreshing and rewarding.

The interviews left me with thirteen hours of data that I am in the process of transcribing. The aim is to transcribe the data, identify themes,triangulate (connect /compare) the themes, draw conclusions and generate design briefs, based on the insights, for the ‘Graphic interventions’ to be developed and tested in the built environment in Pakistan.