This page lists the research topics of our current active students, followed by a listing of the thesis titles of past students. Most past theses are retrievable from the British Library database EThOS.
Research topics present and past
Current research topics
| Diacritics in the Arabic script and Typography |
| The Design of Annual Reports, 1980-2000 |
| The use of typographic variants and space in printed Korean dictionaries: from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century |
| How does the design of pictorial signs, as a component of digital communication, affect their use as a form of personal expression? |
| Linear and concurrent developments of early digital type design processes in environments of specifications, strategies, production and discourse. |
| How the book, as a physical object, influences and is part of the process of storytelling through its narrative structure |
| Representations of gender in print production technology advertisements, with focus on the post-war period |
|
Letterforms in political printed propaganda during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) |
| Arabic typography for beginner readers |
| Using emerging technologies to explore dimensional typefaces and investigate processes for new designs |
| Typographical variations in Chinese print: missionaries, metal type, and printing press in late imperial China (1813–1860) |
| A comparative study of Bengali letterforms to support diversity in Bengali digital font design |
| Teaching methods of Arabic-English bilingual typography design for graphic design students at Princess Noura University, Riyadh, KSA |
| Lettering and typography at the English seaside: a study of resort identity, development, and experience |
| The impact of societal and technological changes on the development of personal printed writing paper in Great Britain, 1800 to 1870 |
|
The analysis of Tangut script from a typeface design perspective |
Past student theses
| Date | Thesis title (final) |
| 2024 | The application of an information design approach to the development of a user-oriented digital local food map for Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire |
| 2024 | Evolution of Chinese typeforms up to the early 20th century |
| 2024 | A systematic analysis of visual and algorithmic letter fitting |
| 2023 | Design, production and circulation of artists’ publications in the 1960s and 1970s: a comparison of Beau Geste Press and Seth Siegelaub |
| 2023 | The discourse in early digital type design technologies |
| 2023 | Searching for bearings outside the historical canon: an investigation into the archive of Charles Mozley, graphic artist, illustrator, and designer |
| 2022 | A diachronic study of food labels with a particular focus on verbal and pictorial narratives that are relevant to health |
| 2022 | Towards understanding diversity in Arabic type styles: its origins, its current use and its effect on Arab readership |
| 2022 | Fairness in design: a model for critically analysing digital government forms |
| 2022 | Legibility of Chinese-English direction signs: how the spatial presentation of bilingual typography in two different scripts affects sign legibility |
| 2021 | The early typographic representation of the Persian language |
| 2021 | Networks, artefacts, and technology: nineteenth-century Muslim lithographers, missionaries, and colonialism in the Malay archipelago |
| 2021 | Reading with early-stage Alzheimer's disease. Modifications to book design as a way of supporting preserved literacy skills |
| 2021 | Design for decision making: the design of information for later life housing options |
| 2021 |
Designing italics: approaches to the design of contemporary secondary text typefaces |
| 2020 | The development of typographic forms for the Kannada and Telugu scripts (1801–1900) |
| 2020 | Communications for flood awareness: using information design to support people in the uptake of preparedness actions |
| 2020 | Conventions, traditionalism, Latinisation, and modernity in Armenian typefaces across type-making technologies from 1512 to 1977 |
| 2020 | Embodied iteration: materialising the language of writing and performance in women artists' publishing (1968–1977) |
| 2020 | Fortunato Depero and Depero futurista 1913–1927 |
| 2019 | A new method of analysing printed type: the case of 15th-century Venetian romans |
| 2019 | The use of informative and decorative pictures in Health and Safety posters for children |
| 2019 | Better museum maps: an empirical study comparing the appeal and effectiveness of graphic design approaches |
| 2019 | A comparison of seeking-finding behaviours across the contexts of environmental space, paper documents, and on screen |
| 2019 | Coherence in typeface design: visual similarity of characters in Cyrillic, Devanagari, and Latin |
| 2019 | Democratizing knowledge and visualising progress: illustrations from Chambers's Encyclopaedia, 1859-1892 |
| 2018 | Arabic types in Europe and the Middle East, 1514-1924: challenges in the adaptation of the Arabic script from written to printed form |
| 2018 | Linotype's design of new Greek typefaces for photocomposition in the Greek printing market, 1970-1980 |
| 2018 | The Latin alphabet reform in Turkey |
| 2018 | An information design approach to documenting live art: locating & empowering the document user |
| 2017 | Devanagari type in the twentieth century |
| 2016 | Clothing the paper: On the state of newspaper design, redesigns, and art directors' perspectives in contemporary quality and popular newspapers |
| 2016 | Monotype and Eric Gill: a study of the design and production of Gill's hot-metal typefaces |
| 2015 | Relationships between document instantiations across systems, mediums, and genres |
| 2014 | The "modern face" in France and Great Britain, 1781-1825: typography as an ideal of progress |
| 2014 |
International cross-currents in typeface design: France, Britain and the USA in the phototypesetting era |
| 2014 | Reading and the morphology of the page: a historical study of the typographic design of the Greek alphabet book, 1771-1919 |
| 2013 | Arabic type-making in the machine age; the influence of technology on the form of Arabic type 1908-1993 |
| 2013 | Edward Wright (1912-1988) artist, designer, teacher with Descriptive catalogue of works (1937-1988) |
| 2012 | Typographic meaning: readers' impressions of patterns of typographic differentiation |
| 2012 | A definition of the principles of Isotype and an investigation into their methods of diffusion and legacy |
| 2011 | Design is Ordinary: Lay Graphic Communication and Its Relation to Professional Graphic Design Practice |
| 2010 | Using visual explanations of complex verbal concepts to aid dyslexic children in literacy acquisition |
| 2009 | Tibetan typeforms: an historical and visual analysis of Tibetan typefaces from their inception in 1738 up to 2009 |
| 2008 | The Fifteenth-Century Printing Practices of Johann Zainer, ULM 1473-1478 |
| 2008 | Visual genre conventions and user performance on the web |
| 2008 | A framework for graphic description in book design |
| 2008 | Towards the optimization of software instructional demonstrations |
| 2008 | Typography in traditional poetry: Methods of segmentation in narrative poems and sonnets |
| 2008 | Information books for children: Their visual anatomy and evolution (1860-2005) |
| 2007 | E. McKnight Kauffer: poster artist. An investigation into poster design and production during the inter-war period using E. McKnight Kauffer's oeuvre as an example |
| 2007 | Secret and Confidential: Some Aspects of Oxford University Press and its Activities in the Second World War |
| 2006 | English little presses, book design and production. A study of five London publishers, 1945-1979 |
| 2006 | Effects of the typographic layout of reading examination materials on performance |
| 2005 | Frederick Gye and Giles Balne: A Study of the firms Gye & Balne (1805-1829) and Balne (1829-1938) with particular reference to their colour printing |
| 2005 | Usability for Learning. A Socio-Cultural Approach to Usability of VLEs |
| 2005 | The life and work of Beatrice Warde |
| 2005 | The arrangement of links in government websites |
| 2005 | Sebastiao Rodrigues and the development of modern graphic design in Portugal |
| 2005 | Designing appropriate icons for Taiwanese computer users |
| 2004 | The development of special characters in Slavonic languages with the emphasis on the orthographic reforms in Slovenian and Croatian language |
| 2003 | Typography & graphic design in Spain |
| 2002 | Images of peace in Britain from the late nineteenth century to the Second World War |
| 2002 | Understanding readers' navigation in www documents |
| 2002 | Otl Aicher: design as a method of action |
| 2001 | Thomas Way & T.R. Way |
| 2001 | Informing young people: What motivates young people to read community education resources |
| 2001 | Tabulation, grouping and separation techniques in the presentation of printed accounts and financial statements during the time of letterpress |
| 1999 | The Kynoch Press 1876-1981 |
| 1999 | Knowledge construction in typography: the case of legibility research and the legibility of sans serif typefaces |
| 1999 | Milestones in lithographed cartography from 1800 |
| 1998 | Towards a methodology for studying commonalities in the drawing process of young children |
| 1998 | An analytical approach to procedural pictorial sequences |
| 1997 | Casting the Greek newspaper |
| 1996 | Compound-plate printing: the impact of a style |
| 1995 | Paul Renner and German typography, 1900-1950 |
| 1995 | Publishers and purchasers of the photographically-illustrated book in the nineteenth century |
| 1994 | The Illustrated Wittgenstein: a study of the diagrams in Wittgenstein's published works |
| 1994 | The Linotype in the United Kingdom 1889-1912 |
| 1993 | O Gráfico Amador: The roots of modern Brazilian typography |
| 1993 | The graphic language of vernacular literacy primers in West Africa |
| 1993 | An investigation into the suitability of the graphic presentation of patient package inserts |
| 1991 | Photography and printmaking 1840-1860 |
| 1991 | The translation of the Anglican book of Common Prayer |
| 1990 | Semiotics and design: from gothic revival to avant-garde |
| 1990 | The graphic translation of text |
| 1990 | The contribution of the firm of Boulton & Watt to engineering drawing |
| 1989 | Graphic communication in development programmes: models for communicators |
| 1989 | H.N.H. The work of Henry Noel Humphrey |
| 1988 | Greek printing types in Britain from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century |
| 1988 | Joins in children's handwriting and the effects of different models and teaching methods |
| 1987 | The typographic contribution to language. Towards a model of typographic genres and their underlying structures |
| 1985 | English printers 1600-1700 and their supra-text roman and italic types |
| 1983 | Descriptive techniques for studying verbal graphic language |
| 1981 | Colour lithography in England during the nineteenth century |
| 1979 | Otto Neurath's contribution to visual communication (1925-45) |
| 1972 | An investigation into some aspects of the use of colour in illustrations designed for the primary school child |
| 1966 | Lithography 1800-1850: a study of the techniques of drawing on stone in England and France, and their application in works of typography |
| 1965 | Experimental graphic processes in England, 1800-1859 |