As this exploration semester comes to an end, I find myself thinking about what comes next especially in terms of the master thesis. And I keep returning to the same internal conflict or questions i ask myself
How do I choose a topic that I really care about, without feeling like I’m doing it a disservice through design or focussing too much on the topic rather than the communication design aspect.
As in my bachelor thesis I had a topic I really did not care about a lot, it is important to me to find something like this that really interests me, but yeah, where do I find the link to design, or the loophole so to say. I think thats my main question with finding a good topic for myself.
Working on gendered space felt meaningful but I also felt like touching and important issue only on the surface level. But it is something I think about and experience constantly, how people perceived as female navigate public space, how protest can happen in subtle ways, how design can be used not to decorate, but to disturb. But the deeper I got into it, the more I felt exactly this pressure:
Am I doing this topic justice? Is a poster enough? Is communication design the right tool—or does it risk flattening the complexity of what I want to say?
I don’t have a clear answer yet. I know I might want to continue exploring feminist protest forms, everyday power dynamics, and how public space can be questioned or reclaimed. But I also want to become more confident in how I design for these themes and how to find a tone, a form, a system that doesn’t simplify the issue, but opens it up.
Maybe the thesis can be a space to investigate exactly this tension of not just what I want to say, but how I want to say it. And maybe how the act of designing can already part of the message.
So next steps: Research, research, research ! in any form, even if its just observing the outdoors and what other people created. Maybe experiment with formats beyond posters, spatial interventions, digital layers, collaborative elements. Something that lets me both explore the topic and the medium.
Looking forward to the moment I have found something!
Over and out, enjoy your summer, Lina
