Vernacular design: a discussion on its concept

FINIZOLA, Fátima / Doctoral student / UFPE / Brazil

COUTINHO, Solange G./ PhD / UFPE / Brazil
CAVALCANTI, Virgínia P./ PhD / UFPE / Brazil

Vernacular Design / Popular Design / Formal Design

This article presents a review of the literature that covers the spe-
cific area of design denominated ‘vernacular design’, and proposes
a discussion and comparison of the different viewpoints regarding
this theme, from the twentieth century until today. It also presents
a discussion on the forms in which formal design has appropriated
vernacular design, together with its positive and negative aspects.

1. Introduction
By observing the artifacts of design, which make part of our daily
lives, it is possible to identify several spontaneous manifestations
that go hand in hand with official design, and that sometimes be-
come lost in their transience because they have not been regis-
tered or recognized by the academy or the market. The value of
these artifacts is attributed, not through major design awards,
or articles in specialized magazine or as successful items on the
business market, but by the recognition of being built by tradition,
a tradition that has been consecrated by the daily use of these ar-
tifacts in a particular place or region.
For those with an eye more attentive to their surroundings, these
elements, which often go unnoticed in the constant dynamic
rhythms of large urban centers, may reveal certain peculiarities
of the habits and customs of a people, their desires, their needs,
their ideas, and still express something from the periphery and its
counterculture.
In this manner, Dona Nice, seamstress from the Lemos Torres
community, with an urgent need to promote her dressmaking
business, also finds herself taking on the role of signwriter, capa-
ble of making her own advertising signs. Those who sell mangos
on the beach at Tamandaré need to pack their products in order to
distribute them to their customers, and so they make bags from
coconut palms. The gardener at a small shopping arcade in the
district of Parnamirim discovers that a perforated plastic bottle
attached to a hose is able to distribute the water more evenly on
the grass and thus creates a new gadget. In most cases, it is the
law of necessity that leads to the construction of these devices,
often simple in shape, naive, and made from materials easily at
hand (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Vernacular artifacts: sign, basket and sprinkler (Recife and Tamandaré,
Brazil)
After the first schools of Industrial Design – or Design – opened,
and the profession had been formalized, especially in those coun-
tries where industrialization represented a break with the old
artisanal methods of production, and not the result of a natural
development, many craftsmen were either forced to the margins
of the professional market or went on to work in an informal man-
ner. Since then, there has been a constant dialogue within the
market between the production of Formal Design, originating from
those professionals who have generally been through some kind
of specialized training or academic graduation within the area, and
the production of what we call Vernacular Design, i.e. spontane-
ous design produced on the edge of mainstream design. In this
category it is also possible to include inventions of popular origin,
such as utilitarian objects, packaging, signs for itinerant market
and homes, as well as artifacts for popular communication - ban-
ners, signs, murals, amongst others
Since the 1990s, however, these artifacts have been through a
continuous process of revaluation and reinterpretation, boosted
by post-modernism and by new digital technologies. Once the
new work tools had been mastered, ‘handmade’ design, handi-
crafts, gadgets, popular, also became an object of projectual inter-
est and have also become incorporated, simulated and mixed into
elements produced through digital means.

In parallel to the arrival of postmodernism and its questions re-

garding modernist precepts in arts and society as a whole, the
phenomenon of market globalization as well as the globalization
of communications through the internet, has also stimulated con-

FINIZOLA, Fátima; COUTINHO, Solange G.; CAVALCANTI, Virgínia P. 2012. Vernacular design: a discussion on its concept. In Farias, Priscila Lena;
Calvera, Anna; Braga, Marcos da Costa & Schincariol, Zuleica (Eds.). Design frontiers: territories, concepts, technologies [=ICDHS 2012 - 8th
Conference of the International Committee for Design History & Design Studies]. São Paulo: Blucher, 2012. ISBN 978-85-212-0692-7
DOI 10.5151/design-icdhs-107
Vernacular design: a discussion on its concept
tact between different cultures, habits and behavior, providing an
environment which is constantly exchanging experiences.
Thus, to a certain extent, the process of globalization has poten-
tialized the hybridization of cultures, as well as the hybridization
between different styles, from both analog and digital graphic
language, thus allowing elements distanced by time and space
to engage in a single artifact.
This movement of intense cultural circularity between the popu-
lar and formal design, particularly in the field of design, has
sparked new debates and has slowly begun to consolidate ver-
nacular design as a new area of study and research. Since it is a
relatively new subject of study, it can be observed that the area
is still undergoing a process of constructing concepts and defini-
tions, as well as an exact definition of its object of study.
With the aim of defining and consolidating this field of research,
this article presents a discussion and comparison of the differ-
ent viewpoints regarding this theme from the twentieth century
until today. It also presents a discussion on the forms in which
formal design appropriates vernacular design, its negative and
positive aspects.
2. Defining ‘Vernacular Design’
Although this area is academically recognized, the concepts that
define it remain inconsistent. If the recent history of the Latin
America is compared to the long traditions of European coun-
tries, several disparities become more perceptive.
First, it is important to understand that our vision concerning
the term ‘design’ is in accordance with that adopted by BORGES
(2011) from the ICSID, where the concept is used in a broader
manner, without exclusively specifying the mode of industrial
production, including other forms of production such as artisa-
nal or artistic.
Design is a creative activity whose aim is to establish the
multi-faceted qualities of objects, processes, services and their
systems in complete life cycles. Therefore, design is a central
factor of the innovative humanization of technologies and a
crucial factor of cultural and economic exchange. (ICSID, 2012)
Thus, those products that are developed by artisanal techniques
in small quantities could also be considered design objects, like
those originating from the informal production of design ver-
nacular.
Initially it is fundamental to recover the original meaning of the
term ‘vernacular’. Derived from the Latin expression verna or
vernaculus, according to the Aurélio Dictionary, this term could
be defined with three different meanings: “1. Particular from the
region in which it exists. 2. Pure language, without foreignness
[...]. 3. The idiom of a country.” In this way, the term ‘vernacular’
is originally related to the native language of a particular coun-
try, region or locality.
Design Frontiers: Territiories, Concepts, Technologies 553
According to the design historian Darron Dean (apud Farias et al,
2010:303), “the term ‘vernacular’ was first applied to design by
George Gilbert Scott in Domestic and Secular Architecture, pub-
lished in London in 1857”. Farias (2011) observes that it was
in the field of architecture where the first studies on vernacular
design were developed. In this area, the expression ‘vernacular’
could be defined like a “synonym of popular, folkloric, or an an-
tonym of high style design” (Rapoport, apud Farias, 2011:167).
In Brazil, in the perspective of communication and design stud-
ies, the term ‘popular’ as an antonym of ‘erudite’ or ‘classic’, is
frequently used to describe what we call ‘vernacular’ (FARIAS et
al, 2010:303).
Cardoso (2005:7-8) emphasizes the binomial popular-erudite
and presents an approach to vernacular structured on the point
of view of the social dichotomy between dominant-dominated,
where the “called graphic vernacular design, is related to the pro-
duction of popular culture, and the other, erudite graphic design
is related to the production that comes from erudite culture”.
Lupton (1996), however, draws attention to the necessity of
looking without preconceptions at these expressions from popu-
lar culture, observing that vernacular design should not be iden-
tified as something ‘small’, marginal or non-professional, but a
vast territory whose inhabitants speak a kind of local dialect.
There is not only a unique form of vernacular, but an infinity of
visual languages resulting in different groups of idioms (LUP-
TON, 1996:111).
Dones (2004:1) adapts the term vernacular for the specific area
of communication and graphic design, asserting that “The term
vernacular suggests the existence of local visual languages and
idioms that refer to different cultures. In graphic communication
corresponds to the graphic solutions, publications and signaling
that make reference to the local customs produced outside the
official discourse”.
Farias (2011:167) expands the traditional concept of vernacular
and apart from the informal expressions of design also includes
those that come before the institution of design courses, she
asserts that: “In Graphic Design and Typography, we can define
vernacular artifacts as product of design practices developed
before, or despite the institution of modernist design courses,
mostly by anonymous artists and in the commerce context”.
It is important to highlight that the definition by Farias (2011)
refers to a specific meaning particularly common in the Occiden-
tal Europe. In England, for example, the term ‘vernacular typog-
raphy’ is frequently used to denominate digital fonts that refer to
wooden display types that were used during the boom of com-
mercial typography in the mid-twentieth century.
In some Latin countries the term ‘vernacular’ is frequently used
as a synonym for ‘popular’, while in some European countries it
is more associated with pre-industrial production. This approach
FINIZOLA, Fátima / COUTINHO, Solange G. / CAVALCANTI, Virgínia P.
that associates the vernacular with a production with nostal-
gic characteristics is not very common in Latin America, which
makes us wonder whether in fact there would be no different nu-
ances to the vernacular design that could vary from culture to
culture, or country to country.
Another important observation concerns the inappropriate use
of the term vernacular to identify some artifacts that belong
to formal design, which are inspired and appropriated from el-
ements of informal design. In these cases it is more suited to
describe these artifacts as products of formal design that make
reference to the vernacular design.
Today, there are many adjectives that characterize the word ‘ver-
nacular’, but very often they lack specificity: informal, sponta-
neous, ingenuous, authentic, genuine, popular, rustic, artisanal,
non-academic, non-official, anonymous, local, among others.
Therefore, considering the main characteristics that define ver-
nacular design nowadays among design studies in Brazil and in
other countries, we could construct a ‘cloud’ of key words related
to the term (Figure 2):
Figure 2. ‘Cloud’ of keywords related to the term ‘vernacular design’
3. The Vernacular Artifact
In order to consolidate the ways that contribute to building a
more precise definition for vernacular design, our starting point
has been to observe this known artifact in order to analyze some
of its characteristics.
Thus, we have proposed six analytical criteria for artifacts, con-
sidering the processes of conceiving, producing and commer-
cializing the product, adapted to the initial proposal by Finizola
(1996): 1) origin; 2) authorship; 3) planning process; 4) produc-
tive process; 5) final user; and, 6) the language of aesthetics.
The ‘origin’ concerns the source of reference that helped to build
the repertoire of each author – whether academic or non aca-
demic, born of cultural traditions handed down from generation
to generation. The criterion ‘authorship’ identifies and character-
Design Frontiers: Territiories, Concepts, Technologies 554
izes the authorship of the product - whether specialist or non-
specialist, designer or craftsman, etc. The criterion ‘planning
process’ analyzes the design of the artifact – if it is spontane-
ous, improvised or guided by specific design methodologies. The
‘productive process’ observes whether the artifact has been de-
veloped according to a process of artisanal production, manufac-
turing or industrial, as well as observing the raw materials used
in this process. The ‘final user’ refers to the public at which the
project is aimed, according to gender, age, social class, among
others and analyses the proximity between the author and the
user, which in some cases may be the same individual. And fi-
nally, ‘the language of aesthetics’ concerns the language used
as a formal reference for the conception of the artifact – for
example, if it refers to a high style design or to a local, regional
style, etc.
Finally, applying these criteria to the specific analysis of vernac-
ular design, considering the current acceptance of the term here
in Brazil, it is possible to mount the following schemata (Figure
3):
Figure 3. Characterizing the vernacular artifact
4. The process of appropriation of Vernacular
The new paradigm of globalization and the digital era have
stimulated the hybridization of diverse cultures and aesthetic
tendencies in arts and design, including the appropriation of the
vernacular by high-style forms. In this sense, an investigation is
undertaken of the forms that this process of contact and appro-
priation have managed to attain, together with the possible posi-
tive and negative effects that could affect both sides.
However, if on one hand globalization has tended towards cultur-
al homogenization, which comes from the continuous process of
acculturation between distinct countries – whether imposed or
not –, on the other, it provokes a sentiment of preserving habits
and customs particular to each place, bringing about a move-
ment of cultural resistance. In a third instance there appears
what is termed ‘hybrid cultures’ constructed through the misce-
genation of distinct cultural elements.
From within this new cultural paradigm, new challenges and
Vernacular design: A discussion on its concept
questions appear for the practice of design, where designers
take on the role of mediator amongst various cultural groups,
much like translators of the cultural elements into which they
are inserted, able to reflect on the various visual rhythms in their
region of production. In this sense, in an environment of cultural
circularity, potentialized by the phenomenon of globalization,
designers are capable of articulating elements that belong to
other cultural contexts attributing new meanings and values to
them.
The spontaneous languages encountered in the streets are used
and reused, reconstructed by creative digital methods, going
through a process of re-signification and thus are incorporated
into formal design. This rich exchange of experiences permitting
the erudite to become popular, and where the popular is assimi-
lated by the official language, also becoming erudite (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Appropriations of the vernacular: Ronaldo Fraga’s collection inspired by
the Vale do São Francisco and special editions of Coca-Cola packaging referring to
elements of Brazilian culture
The processes of hybridization and the appropriation of cul-
tural elements from distinct groups may at times raise ethical
questions regarding the form in which the process of interven-
tion from one culture to another it is conduced. Gui Bonsiepe
(2011:63-64) highlights the different approaches that may
be adopted during the process of integration between culture,
popular handicrafts and formal design that may also be applied
to the field of vernacular design: “the conservative focus, the
aesthetic focus, the productive focus, the culturalist or essen-
tialist focus, the paternalist focus and the promoter of innova-
tion focus”.
The intention of the conservative focus is to protect the artifacts
from any design influence that comes from outside, treating
artisanal artifacts as objects of study, which should have their
legitimacy preserved; the aesthetic focus (also called ethnode-
sign) elevates the work of popular artisans to the status of art
and uses its formal aesthetic language as a reference for design
production; the productive focus searches in the universe of
popular artifacts for cheap, qualified labor for the production of
objects developed and signed by artists and designers; the cul-
turalist focus considers local projects developed by artisans as
a starting point to build an identity of Latin American design; the
paternalist focus gives incentive to programs that assist artisa-
nal production as a mediator of the process, at times with high
profit margins; finally, the promoter of innovation focus seeks
to encourage artisans to be autonomous so as to improve their
Design Frontiers: Territiories, Concepts, Technologies 555
living conditions. It is important to highlight that these postures
may also appear in a hybrid form, with a combination of more
than one of these attitudes cited by Bonsiepe (2011).
Rapoport (1982) also enumerates four attitudes which we could
have in relation to the vernacular:
1) Vernacular design may be ignored; 2) Vernacular design may
be recognized but its value may be minimized […]; 3) Vernacular
design may be romanticized and one then ‘learns’ from it by
copying or imitating its superficial forms; 4) One can learn from
vernacular design by analyzing it through the application of
concepts, models, and theories […] and applying these lessons to
design. (RAPOPORT, 1982).
By looking specifically at the production of Graphic Design that
takes the vernacular universe as a reference, we may also per-
ceive some indication of what brings about the process of ap-
propriation and translation of the formal elements of popular
imagery to formal design.
Finizola (2009) initially distinguishes three major groups: first,
those that re-read or transpose visual elements present in ver-
nacular or popular graphic language of a determined region and
propose new applications and uses; second, those that register
through images, colors, textures, forms and fragments of envi-
ronments that make part of our surroundings; and finally, the
projects that do not bring any direct visual connection to that
which is popular, regional or vernacular, but that approaches the
theme conceptually, with a graphic language that is strange to
the original environment. (FINIZOLA, 2009:120).
Each of these project approaches or methodologies have their
own specific merit, which impedes us from indicating any one
way as being better or shorter. What unites these designers is
the option to value, in one way or another, cultural elements of
the region where they from, proposing a greater reflection and
identification between those who will consume these products.
5. Concluding Remarks
The study of vernacular manifestations, including the analysis
of its creative and productive processes, such as the formal
and symbolic elements that characterize graphic vernacular,
may bring important contributions to formal design, in that it
becomes the starting point for a production more committed to
the local culture and habits of its people and, at the same time,
differentiated within a global market.
While the primary concept of ‘vernacular’ is understood as
something, which is genuine and authentic, and from a specific
place, there is considerable evidence to support the fact that
the definition of vernacular could also have a number of varia-
tions and interpretations, depending on the place or context into
which it is applied.
Acknowledgment
This research is developed as a part of the research group from
FINIZOLA, Fátima / COUTINHO, Solange G. / CAVALCANTI, Virgínia P.
CAPES/PROCAD, entitled ‘Brazilian Graphic Memory’.
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About the author(s)
Fátima Finizola is graphic designer and a doctorate student at
the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil. Author of Tipo-
grafia Vernacular Urbana: uma análise dos letreiramentos popu-
lares and owner of Corisco Design Studio. <ff@corisco.net>
Solange Coutinho is a Graphic Designer whose main interest
is information design for education; Ph.D, by The University of
Reading, UK; Lecturer at the Design Department, Universidade
Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil; Leader of the Information
Design Research Group. Research Member of the Centre de Re-
cherche Images, Cognitions et Culture (CRICC), Université Pan-
théon Sorbonne - Paris 1. <solangecoutinho@globo.com>
Virgínia Cavalcanti is an industrial designer whose main interest
relates design, technology and culture. Doctor by USP - Univer-
sidade de São Paulo; Lecturer at the Design Department, Uni-
versidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil; Leader of the
Design, Technology and Culture Research Group; Coordinator of
Imaginário, a program in which contributes to popular culture
and formal design. <cavalcanti_virginia@hotmail.com>