Writerly Readers: Semiotics of redevelopment at the Elephant and Castle

  • Vanessa Price: Lead Tutor Pg Studies, MA Graphic Design, School of Design, LCC.

This paper addresses a model of qualitative research from the field of design pedagogy. It offers a learning and teaching case study from the Writerly Readers workshop that utilises the city as a case study to remodel structured pedagogic divisions between semiotics and practice. Through the cityscape, texts and narratives of the Elephant and Castle the paper re-imagines how graphic design could enable us to become more writerly readers of visual meaning. By taking semiotics beyond the boundaries of the University the workshop critiques the binary relationship that has sometimes caused semiotic theory to exist as distinct to the visual culture it seeks to understand. Finally the paper highlights issues arising from the Elephant and Castle case study and offers a counter narrative to the visual and textual idiom of the developers.