Jason Permenter

Hi everyone. As you might or might not be aware, I’m currently working on a Master’s thesis in Graphic Design. If you were aware, however, you might or might not know what the topic’s all about. Well, this is it, you guys: The Science of Satire.

Satire’s a very special beast—as a rhetorical device, it must adhere to some basic principles in order to be effective. Satire requires a target, an audience, a healthy (if self-righteous) moral code and a great big heap of plausible deniability. While humor and wit have each been taken on as topics before, there’s surprisingly little written about satire in the visual arts. Next to nothing exists for graphic design itself. 

Even more scarce in the literature is any sort of generative model for satire in design. Something to show you how to do it. The historical examples might stand on their own, but finding basic principles and techniques that can help guide the modern, conceptual design process? Nothin’. So that’s what my thesis is all about. Making somethin’.

By the end of it all, I’ll have created a unique, 300-something page Tome of Knowledge that no Thinking Designer should be caught dead without. Or at least have just within reach, should the need arise, somewhere on their shelf. Maybe the upper left. That sounds nice.

Mind you, I’m still in the creation phase, and there’s lots of research and writing left to do. So, I really should ask: Do you know satire? Are you an expert? Are you a designer that would love to see such a thing exist? Do you want to be friends? Do you know someone who’d just love to talk to someone like me about something like this? Do you know someone who’d be the perfect interviewee about satire in design or even satire in general? Lemme know, or feel free to send an email to scienceofsatire at the gmail dot com place.

UPDATE: Also, I’ve started up this blog to keep track of progress: Science of Satire.