Basel Design History Lab

Emerging from the SNSF-funded project "Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited" (SGDTR), the future_history lab focuses on the educational principles in teaching graphic design, visual communication alongside the design of digital communication channels from a historical as well as current perspective.

The historical archives of the Basel School of Design as well as records of select current teaching outputs provide the foundation for the ongoing reflection on past as well as future educational practices. At the same time, the work provides an opportunity to address basic questions as regards archives and their significance in a digital context, and to think ahead by means of models. For instance, it raises the question of how to search for images on the basis of visual criteria, or how to interpret the contents of images by way of automation through deep learning technologies and thus avoid having to create language-based keyword catalogues.