My dissertation explores the influential power of visual culture in reforming how we aesthetically behave with relation to contemporary television images. This influence depends on psychological and cultural structures that are linked to the television imagery, and more precisely to visually disturbing images. The approach to this question aims at examining a new aesthetic generated by the means of its television persona. I intend to tackle this by, first, drawing on the meaning of the weird and strange imagery that underlies the new aesthetic. Second, to recognize the new aesthetic tangible ...

This thesis examines visual comfort of existing buildings in densely populated residential neighborhoods of Mar Mikhael, in specific those built between 1951 and 1964 (which constitute the largest number). Visual comfort is one of the most overlooked aspects while designing residential buildings, even though it promotes a user’s circadian rhythm (a 24-hour cycle that optimizes a body’s processes) and health. Thus, there is a lot of room for improvement in the design of facades because opening positioning, window to wall ratio, shape, and shading, have a major role to play in occupant ...

Construction industries may play a critical role in dominant energy usage as pressure mounts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Energy efficiency investments can be a profitable way to reduce carbon emissions. Solar buildings with Net-Zero Energy are emerging as a promising way for reducing buildings' environmental impact. In Lebanon, there is a transition from vernacular to modern architecture in the early twentieth century. It is tightly related to the implementation of concrete in construction and the formation of the national cement industry, which paved the way for the creation of ...

People with low vision form a user group that graphic designers and visual communicators often fail to address. Product packages are just one example of a design output that may not need of low vision clientele. This study consolidates and summarizes literature relevant to the design needs of people with low vision including literature on inclusive design, visibility of colors and pictures, readability and legibility of type and packaging semantics. The aim of this thesis is to set guidelines for packaging designers and introduce the needs of people with low vision in their design practices. To ...

Durability is a term that has widely affected the design industry in general and the graphic design industry in particular over the last decade. It has given the design profession in general a problem-solving aspect and a fundamental role in creating and promoting more responsible design solutions. In the graphic field, a logo design plays a partial but important role in the communication of an identity: A logo is for “identification” of a business or product in its simplest form. Case studies show that logo design is not durable. It is periodically re-designed, as an attempt to update the ...

I have read in Aidoo’s Dilemma of a Ghost that it is sometimes assumed by the west that Africans were incapable of coherent reasoning. With this ambiguous implication, one is forced to conclude that, this meant that African ethnicities and their visual art designs lacked the matter and the form which made the other groups of mankind supposedly think more logically. I intend to dispel such myths as far as Acholi of Uganda are concerned by introducing a peak look through the designs of living expressed in the Acholi ethnicity. I hope, through this little work that scholars of other academic ...

Vernacular architecture (VA) can be a model for sustainable architecture (Mirahmadi and Altan, 2017), while maintaining harmony with the context, environment, climatic conditions, and uses local available materials. Vernacular practices vary by the use of techniques, materials, and methods of construction in order to minimize the negative impact on the environment (Al Tawayha et al., 2019). It bears a cultural identity that is often lost in some rural areas and has developed strategies that are considered as climatic responsive, minimize the energy consumption, and assure the indoor thermal ...

Preoccupied with the Arabic language’s complexity, and striving to find one common pointer of educational strength, this thesis, epistemological in its core, deals, manifestly with typographic issues. Nevertheless, it engages in the cultural, psychological, and neurological in order to serve the educational. It builds upon substantiated historical study of the genetic descent of the letters in general and the Arabic alphabet arbitrariness in particular with their respective cross-cultural interpretations along with related criticisms. From the naïve Cuneiform system of writing to the most elaborate ...

Public schools guarantee education that is invariably available to pupils, even to those who have financial difficulties. Being easily accessible, attending such schools has remained high until today; in 2019, US public institutions educated over 50.8 million scholars, to which the national average number of pupil per public school was about 526 scholars (Brian D. Ray, 2021). Conversely, public schools in Lebanon do not enclose such high number of students due to their unsatisfactory reputation: most of these schools are in bad conditions, outdated, and have limited classroom resources. Also, ...

Many university students work in poorly designed facilities and these environments negatively affect them, by causing physical discomfort and posing a threat to their wellbeing. Additionally, studies show that the physical environment can affect students’ wellbeing, satisfaction, and productivity. This research explores the effect of desks in educational facilities on students’ wellbeing. It proposes to address the characteristics of desks that would enhance physical wellbeing among students through a despecialized approach. The research investigates the current state of desks within the three ...