Phil Long
International project entitled "The means by which we find our way"
Project Outline
Concept and development
The project 'The means by which we find our way' was born from a desire to bring the 'wider design world' to Hamilton, New Zealand within the context of local surroundings. Paring down an original 100+ photographs, twenty-six images were selected that covered local urban locations: some iconic to New Zealand (ie. corner dairy), others common to most cities (ie. library) and a few that held particularly interesting, if not random, words (ie. havoc). By removing the textual component from the imagery, empty canvases were created; brandless city streets that became all the more generic and less location-specific.
After an initial call for interest, design educators from around the world were provided these blank-images along with the 'missing text' and encouraged to reintegrate the textual content back into the image by placing the text back into what they thought was the original position, working it back in as graffiti, generating new meaning by the organisation of the words or by including new graphical elements. If the designers were representing a country with multiple languages or were multi-lingual themselves, they were encouraged to use a translation of the text with or without the English text that was provided.
Although the project allows for a casual viewer, it raises deeper questions and issues. 'The means by which we find our way' intends to spark discussion about colloquial visual language and to initiate dialogue about cultural residue – how space and the meaning of words can inform design decisions. As an exhibition, this project adds to the debate about the role that research plays in graphic design professional practice and graphic design's non-commercial function.
Part One
Exhibition includes submissions by design educators from around the world.
Part Two
International design educators were asked to respond to the following topic: 
Describe an experience that, due to an unfamiliar language, knowledge, format, timing or environment, led to a greater level of appreciation or understanding of visual communication. The results are a myriad of poignant and sometimes anecdotal travel stories, commentary and remembrances that shed new light on typography and design and how they function.
The project required an image and text based response.|
The project has been exhibited in the USA and NZ and published in book form.