NAME: Sean Donahue | Research Centered Design
LATIN NAME: curiosus
AGE: 32

Sean Donahue is the founder of Research Centered Design, an LA-based design practice that produces research into the role, use and perception of design in scenarios that range from the experiences of female surfers to the creation of hybrid languages for low- and no-vision communities.

At any one time the studio is engaged in self-sponsored research into three or four themes, in addition to client-generated commissions. A current preoccupation of the studio, for example, is the role of graphic design in U.S. courtroom litigation. Donahue and his team aim to discover to what extent the production quality of graphics used to represent biological and physical evidence influences the credibility of what’s presented. The results of the first phase of their research will be printed in a book. The second phase is to produce strategic recommendations—or what Donahue calls “direct interventions”—that may take the form of artifacts. Donahue believes that, because he does design research—and not sociology or law—the discoveries and observations he makes are unique and offer others looking at the subject a unique perspective. “It’s not necessary to simply default to a poster,” he says.

A graduate of the Media Design program at Art Center College of Design, which is the hub of an evolving research-centered approach to design, Donahue has lectured and published widely and he was the 2004 Designer-in-Residence at North Carolina State University.

Donahue works with between 2 and 10 other people on a project that can take up to two years to complete. For a recent self initiated effort, Donahue developed a typeface for low-vision readers that uses both graphic and tactile elements. Traditionally, the low-vision community was given Braille reading material. Donahue discovered that, because they associated such material with the blind, they tend to reject it. Donahue’s new typeface, Touch, which is now patented for its design and utility, makes one-to-one connections between tactile Braille letters and Roman letterforms and is adjustable to each reader’s needs and preferences.

In order to do the research for this project, Donahue employed what he calls “extreme ethnography,” which in this case meant spending time and eating dinner with families who had a member with low vision … instead of just working through the lens of a low vision community center. In the family setting he was able to obtain a more holistic perspective on his subjects’ life experiences. He recorded his observations through a mixture of recall, photography, audio and video. “I think of myself as a conduit in these situations,” says Donahue.

Beyond his role as a conduit, however, Donahue’s work—and the manner in which it uses research as a catalyst to discover new or different ways to interact with a community through design— has wider implications for the design profession. “I don’t rely on prescribed formats,” says Donahue. “I use research as a way to expand models of practice and what a design studio is or can contribute to society.” Alice Twemlow

TOP: HISTORIES NOW explores the role of the printed book in structuring how history is collected, communicated and shared. Presenting his findings under four issue-headings—Voice, Point of View, Simultaneity and Authorship—Donahue’s graphic essay also investigates how “design research” might be communicated and shared.