Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt

On Display. How Graphic Design Shapes Us

Graphic design is omnipresent. From food packaging to digital interfaces on our smartphones to advertising surfaces and orientation systems in public spaces – the media surrounding us are designed to have an effect. While we might not always realise it, graphic design informs our perception and comprehension, our feelings and actions.

It steers our gaze, conveys knowledge, promotes, explains, and draws attention. It informs our understanding of the world, our feelings and actions. However, a graphic conception not only determines visibility, but also who or what remains invisible. Graphic design as a discipline permeates our social life.

On Display. How Graphic Design Shapes Us deals with the social dimension of graphic design and examines its impact in times of political, technological, and societal transformation. The artistic contributions by Robin Coenen and Danielle Rosales, Sophia Becker and Aline Bavier, and Anja Kaiser and Rebecca Stephany ask how graphic design influences knowledge and power relations, what defines its tools and methods, and how a collective, feminist practice could approach its normative structures.

The exhibition provides an insight into how graphic design shapes our reality – it is an invitation to ponder ensuing questions and to renegotiate the social responsibility of this discipline.

Curator: Dr. Jonas Deuter