There is an identified gap between the educational and professional practice of graphic design. Many highlight design education as the incubation space for closing the gap and extending the gaze of graphic design beyond a focus on things and towards transitions and the change process, towards ethics and design interventions, and beyond tame problems towards wicked problems. Two pathways are identified for graphic design, one following a commercial route serving the needs of business, and the other leading towards social innovation. It is the latter pathway which remains relatively unexplored in graphic design professional practice, and which therefore has presented opportunities for further development and discovery. As a graphic design educator in a university setting, my research focusses on bringing together educators, students and professional practitioners to enable interaction, identify how these two spheres might connect, and explore what might have traction in industry and higher education, and critically, how a move towards social innovation might impact upon graphic design professional practice.
