Ymt aims to increase contestation in the field of Visual and Graphic communication design in Norway. Ymt is published in English because we also want to open that discussion up to include the world.
Creating a publication like this, is also a vehicle for teaching editorial design, typography, and visual identity, as well as to introduce students of Visual communication to design journalism, adversarial design, and to editorship and design authorship in both the visual language and in the written language. In addition, it serves the purpose of being a platform that enable us, here at the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design (KMD), to instigate and fuel visual communication discourse, in collaboration with local industry.
Ymt is designed and produced by second year bachelor students. This first issue is a showcase of what has recently been questioned in our field, in this academy, through contributions from alumni students from the last three years in MA Design, artistic research projects by academic staff, and with original content by second year BA students in the course Editorial design and visual identity in autumn 2018.
The 23 students working on this first volume of Ymt have contributed with their own initial artistic research through the creation of original content, both visual and written, according to their level of knowledge, and their progress in the exploration of the field. The students were asked to begin the editorial design work by reading the Design department’s new strategy (2018), and then respond and react to it through their design of the publication and their own authored content’s design.
Our strategy promises humanistic and ethical communication as one of its three key concerns. Is that relevant in the field of Visual communication? Is it what we actually practice?
The students responded with a resounding hint: Ymt. The name describes how they interpret our request for an agonistic reaction from them. They are not sure, about anything, but they still know what they think, and how they feel. As do we all, until we are encouraged or forced to question ourselves and what we think we know, which is why it is important to expose our thought process, and offer it up to contestation and conversation. In this, the academic staff here at KMD generously contributes, and offers insights and concerns. In that way answers, or, better still, more questions unfold.
Ymt poses questions. Ymt is a celebration of the challenge that comes with uncertainty, and of how Visual communication designers push for further understanding, improvement, and development in their field. So, we hope you will ymt with us.
Dóra Ísleifsdóttir and Åse Huus, Editors.