The Laboratorio Inclusivo group, comprising Sonia Ciriza Labiano (a graphic designer) and Miguel Ayesa Usechi (a specialist in sculpture) was formed with the intention of questioning and seeking to expand the notion of graphic design and visual communication per se. The idea underlying the project is to design mechanisms that can transfer publishing design tools and adapt them to sightless and partially sighted audiences, thus facilitating their access to certain types of materials in which graphics and illustrations are predominant.
Laboratorio Inclusivo is part of the discipline of information design and inclusive design or "design for all". The group focuses on research as the core of its graphic project and works hard on the designer/user relationship throughout the creative process.
The project Hacia un diseño gráfico inclusivo ["Towards Inclusive Graphic Design"] originated as a response to the severe standardisation to which they Braille alphabet and most graphic material adapted for sightless or partially sighted readers is subject. That standardisation makes it hard to produce and adapt the large-format books which comprise a widely extended product in today's graphic market.
Following an exhaustive documentation stage, a laboratory was organised where a number of multidisciplinary experiments were conducted: various techniques for Braille writing and the adaptation of illustrations in relief form were developed. The resulting materials were tested on potential users and subsequently assessed by Xabier Armendariz Arraiza, a sightless person who co-operated on the project.
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