Contextual design studies is the study of what happens around design practice - before, during and after - to explain its meaning and effect. Successful communication design has always depended on the connection between form, content, audience and context, and the designer's abilities to analyse, understand and clarify the contexts of communication have become more important to creative practice. In this subject students will learn to apply the theoretical frameworks of semiotic, thematic and rhetorical analysis used by the interdisciplinary field of Design Studies to interpret design's potential as cultural expression and communication. Students will analyse visual signs and conventions as both targeted and tacit responses to a range of contexts revealing design's interests in marketplaces, society and identity. Students will analyse various graphic examples, and design literature, as they investigate the significance and agency of design interactions, media artefacts and systems.