This article considers the concept of artistic research as an approach to knowledge generation and understanding. It begins with a brief consideration of the historical development of artistic inquiry and its relationship with research processes and artefacts. It then discusses a specific artistic PhD research project, “Magical realities – A creative consideration of the narrative and illustrative potentials of realismo maravilhoso”, as a form of a ‘creative-production’. The thesis project, which is formatted as a printed storybook, explores the potentials of polyvocal narration and syncretic illustration when aspects of a narrative can be digitally expanded. In actioning the iterative development of the research, a methodological framework is used that integrates heuristic inquiry and reflexive practice. Enabled through this are three interrelated methods: designer’s journals, iterative assembly,