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fLouise has 6 post(s)
INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION:
- What is the program? (Title and bullet points of distinguishing characteristics)
- When was it?
- How did they define graphic design?
- Why did it emerge? (What was it a reaction to? What motivated the founding?)
- What was the curriculum or model on which the program was based?
- A picture is always nice!
UNDERGRAD PROGRAMS
- Bauhaus
- American Bauhaus (IIT)
- Black Mountain
- Ulm
- Swiss Education in America
- CalArts
í REVISE RESEARCH AND CONTEMPLATE NEXT STEPS
We decided that next steps would be to clean up and revise the research to-date (you’ll find under Resources category), but feel our most pressing next task is to determine what we want to our outcome to be so we can be more clear what we’re looking for in the research and where we’re going. We should also plan the steps ahead. To that end, it seems it would be good to get conversation going.
I’m going to outlining a proposal below as a straw horse to be bent, added to, knocked-down, and reshaped. Please add your comments and ideas. Hopefully we have good conversation next class and can shape our plans for the rest of the semester.
Say our goal is POSSIBLE DIRECTIONS FOR GRADUATE GRAPHIC DESIGN EDUCATION.
We’d need to consider:
- What we imagine possible graphic design practices to be…
- by considering what characteristics of our context might impact what graphic designers do and/or what they make and how they make it (technology, culture, economics, etc.)
- As well as how we’d like see graphic design contributing
- (For example, Geoff Wardle, Director of Transportation Design (it used to be Automotive Design, but that no longer seemed relevant) at Art Center said of his new Program that while undergrads learn skills, tools and knowledge to design cars and present to their colleagues and community, “graduate students need to speak to the movers and shakers of the transportation world who are not designers — urban planners, architects, elected officials, and CEOs of car companies — by asking them ‘What bigger issues should we be addressing? How can we make transportation better in the future.'”)
PART 1
To be able to imagine possible practices and contributions, we’d need to do some research:
- Gain awareness of what the current dialogs are about graphic design education to see what others are imagining
- Gain awareness of experimental models of education taking place now as well as historically. We might want to categorize those models:
- New types of institutions (for creatives?)
- New types of programs (for creatives?)
- New types of classroom practices (for creatives?)
- Futurecasts
Then we’d assess what we learned from our research and determine what seemed interesting models/directions to pursue
PART 2
We’d then want to speculate:
- What are future practices that we imagine/would like to see/are needed?
- What are some possible configurations for the program that would education these future practitioners? What classes might be included; are there classes at all? Is there be a better/different way in which education might happen?; and where/how it might take place, etc.?
We might want to test/expand some ideas:
- Would we like to have conversations with others? Who might those people be? How might these conversations take place?
- Would we like to test some ideas? For example, we have a new model of teaching and want to try it out?
Create scenarios
- Ground our ideas, test them, and find a way to explain these through graphics or narratives
PART 3
Finally we’d want to assess what we accomplished and share it will others by publishing what we’ve learned
- Do we want to gather all we’ve researched done and learned into another form of delivery or simply share this site?
- Do we want to include our individual or collective theories?
- Do we want to visualize our models through charts and graphics or performances or some narrative form?
- Do we want to have an event to celebrate and share?
Bauhaus (1919-19132?) Sara
Distinguishing characteristics
Why did it emerge? (What was it a reaction to? What motivated the founding?)
What was the curriculum or model on which the program was based?
- reinvents itself again and again
- marriage of art and technology
Research Resources:
Black Mountain (1933-1957) David
Distinguishing characteristics
- 4-year Undergrad college (liberal arts school, not art school)
- John Dewey’s progressive education model – direct experience over delivered knowledge
- Correlation of body, mind and spirit
- Isolation as productive
- Josef Albers and wife: art as process, not product
- Holistic model of arts
- Focus on community: Dining hall as center, close connection between students and faculty
- Self-governed – attendees in charge of their own education
- Learning and labor
- Focus on experimentation: emphasis on originality
- Summer program intensive
- Not many graduated
Why did it emerge? (What was it a reaction to? What motivated the founding?)
- To establish model of progressive education
- Experiment of “education in a democracy” — first school to have complete democratic self rule
What was the curriculum or model on which the program was based?
- No required classes or set schedule
- Classes were composed of recitations, lectures, tutorials, and seminars
- Teachers free to teach whatever they want
- Students determine whatever they want to study
- Junior division and senior division – moved when ready rather than institional progress. Judged by written and oral examinations
- When ready outside evaluator would determine whether student could graduate
Research Resources:
http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/history
http://www.blackmountainstudiesjournal.org/wp/
http://www.ibiblio.org/bmc/bmcaboutbmc.html
Ulm (1953-1968) Calvin
- Founded by max bill, Bauhaus , Otl Aicher and
- Visual Comm
- Post WW II reconstruction period
- Fed and private funding
- Foundation then specialization
- Moved from formgivng (art) to systems design (science)
- Taught technical, legal…
- Vis Communication taught semiotics
- Partner with Braun (Dieter Rams) “honest form” – integration with industry
- Production-based (systems) thought
Research Resources:
International Design Conference at Aspen (1951) David
Distinguishing characteristics
- Conference established in 1951
- Place to discuss big ideas
- Bring together design and business
- Focus on the “whole man” and renewal of body mind and spirit. Retreat
- Bring people together from different disciplines
- Early topics: Design and Human Values
Why did it emerge? (What was it a reaction to? What motivated the founding?)
- Vision on the part of Walter Paepcke that great ideas would only come from giving design and industry leaders a specific time and place to gather to share ideas
- Need for design to think cross disciplinarily
What was the curriculum or model on which the program was based?
- Many ops to work together with others
- Main conference followed by smaller break-off groups
Research Resources:
http://www.aiga.org/aspen-design-summit/
http://archive.org/details/InternationalDesignConferenceInAspenTheFirstDecade
http://www.aspeninstitute.org
Construction School (1963-65 and 1968-1977) Eline
Distinguishing characteristics
- Norman Potter rewrote way school function
- Interdisc and collaboration From 1964
- 1974-1977 Norman Potter – decentralized structure of school so teacher and students on same level — no hierarchy. Potter leaves in 1977
Potter envisioned the Construction School as a British version of the Bauhaus, which would imbue the students with an idiosyncratic mix of Modernism, the Arts and Crafts movement, anarchism, environmentalism and Christianity.
The Construction School, founded by Norman Potter with a small group of collaborators, was a bold attempt to establish an experimental design school in a provincial English context. The first phase of Potter’s involvement (1964 to 1968) placed an emphasis on interdisciplinary practices and collaboration. The second phase (1975 to 1977) went further, defined by a radical effort to decentralise the educational structure of the school. The school was a product of major changes in the structure of art and design education in the UK. In 1960 a new qualification, the Diploma in Art and Design (DipAD) was introduced, intended to formalise standards in the field. A process of granting accreditation to colleges to offer this new qualification began, with brutal results: only 61 courses were approved to run the DipAD from over 200 applicants. The West of England College of Art lost out in this process, and urgent action was required to found a new course and resubmit for DipAD accreditation. Norman Potter, then teaching at the RCA in London, was approached and given the opportunity to found such a course in Bristol. This difficult inception is typical of much of the school’s story: institutional resistance was a recurrent pressure. The efforts of the school to define itself were constantly foiled, and as early as early as 1966 it was in sufficient trouble to solicit a petition in its defence by a significant list of architects and designers. In 1968 the student sit-in at Hornsey College of Art brought these questions to the attention of the public and prompted extensive discussion on the function of art and design education.
Research Resources:http://www.spikeisland.org.uk/blogs/2012/07/06/on-the-construction-school
CalArts Louise
What is the program?
- School of Design, CalArts
- Established 1970; in late1975 3-D closes and 2-D absorbed into Art School
- Focus on addressing world problems and social issues
- Diverse interests and faculty including psychology, politics, architecture, product design, graphic design. Victor Papanek, Craig Hodgetts, Peter de Bretteville, Sheila de Bretteville
- Explored experimental building practices based in nature; furniture systems, etc.
- 1971 Women’s Design Program established
Why did it emerge? (What was it a reaction to? What motivated the founding?)
Saw next step in evolution of democracy: cultural democracy: Given more leisure time and rapidly expanding new mediums (TV, motion pictures, audio recordings) need seen for arts professionals to produce “serious arts”
What was the curriculum or model on which the program was based?
- Rather than individual studios and academies with each discipline separate, CalArts offers “single inter-disciplinary, cross-fertilizing training ground in full range of the plastic, applied, and performing arts.” Single building to unify. Community of student and teaching artists stimulus and invigoration of “josling together”
- CalTech was model: CalTech concentrated solely on sciences and to train and nourish enlarged vision/CalArts solely on arts as well train and nourish enlarged vision
- Wanted to attract those interested in “experimentation and innovative communications techniques”
- Train and Nourish!: Technique/craftsmanship and nourishing creative spirit rather than apprenticeship
- Against overspecialization
- Upon graduation contribution to innovative art forms and possibly invent new ones.
- Also influenced by Perspecta 11 (publication from Yale) and Blueprint for Counter Education — “a tool for creating a counter education” were the participant will confronted by ideas and issues that compel him to interact with everything going on around him — from movies, to riots, to political campaigns.”
Research Resources:
TC
Cranbrook (1971) Sara
Distinguishing characteristics
- Kathy McCoy started with prof experience better was to communicate cultural activity
- Outside confines of professional practice
- Saw need to evolve and reconsideration of
- Cross disciplinary influences
- Structure to foster creativity
- Desire to make designer more visible
Why did it emerge? (What was it a reaction to? What motivated the founding?)
- Responded to statis — model weren’t working
- Challenged model of universal design
What was the curriculum or model on which the program was based?
Global Tools (1973-1975)
- Functions of Hand and the Mind after exhibition in Italy “The New Domestic Landscape
- Superstudio, Archizoom, Sotssass,
- Started a project with seminars and workshops: 1 seminar and 2 magazine
- Broke off into individual interests
In 1973, a large group of architects, designers and artists gathered “to bridge the alienating gap which has been created between the functions of the hands and those of the mind.”
Known as Global Tools this was the second most important moment for the radicals. It took place one year after Italy: the new domestic landscape, the unifying exhibition which gave rise to the radical’s fame. In attendance at casabella’s headquarters in Milan were Lapo Binazzi and the rest of UFO, Germano Celant, Ugo la Pietra, Alessandro Mendini, Franco Raggi, Ettore Sottsass jr., Archizoom Associati, Remo Buti, Riccardo Dalisi, 9999, Gaetano Pesce, Gianni Pettena, Press, Superstudio and Zzigguratt.
The size of the group was massive and scope of the project was highly focused. The goal was to form a series of seminars and workshops addressing “the study and use of natural techniques and materials” symbolized by rudimentary tools like a hammer. Superstudio began acquiring and documenting the simple tools found in southern Italian towns, eventually concentrating on the walking stick as an artifact.
Unfortunately Global Tool’s vision was too particular and Superstudio was not the only group. It seems impossible to have groups like Archizoom, who embraced the effects of modernization collaborating with Superstudio or Gianni Pettena. Global Tools eventually failed in 1975 after only a single seminar and two magazines. This moment also highlighted the divisions amongst what seemed to be a focused and unified group of radical architects three years prior at INDL.
While groups like Superstudio and Archizoom are often shown in tandem, they seem more like foils. Archizoom chose to explore the new tenants of a modern Italy, whereas Superstudio began to turn to the past.
Resources:http://rolu.terapad.com/?fa=contentNews.newsDetails&from=list&newsID=191441
Bruno Munari Workshops (1980)
Distinguishing characteristics
- Alternative to learning techniques and rote by encouraging experimentation in books
- In conjunction with workshop series with children.
- Sets up scenarios and then
- Did some workshops with adults to put into… “Play with Art”
- Do it yourself by yourself
Why did it emerge? (What was it a reaction to? What motivated the founding?)
What was the curriculum or model on which the program was based?
Research Resources:
3 responses to “EXAMPLES/MODELS: HISTORICAL EXPERIMENTAL (DESIGN) EDUCATION”
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David Robinson says:
Logging in worked now so I’m filling in some of the missing details.
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Elliot Vredenburg says:
Although I’ve only been present for a portion of one of the classes thus far, I thought I’d quickly post some thoughts on the goals of this course (and design pedagogy in general), as per Louise’s request.
“Possible directions for graduate graphic design education” is a great start, but leaves something to be desired, IMO. I’d propose that a goal for the course could be, in fact, discovering real goals for graphic design education, as a whole.
Throughout my undergrad, there were two streams of focus. One was the vocational side of things: learning how to use CS, hard-and-fast rules about typography, how to bullshit, digital to analogue reproduction, and so forth. Second, there was an emphasis on developing a theoretical framework to situate one’s self in. Thus, I developed a strong framework based between Situationism and post-structuralism, and vast proficiencies in digital and print production. Though, due to the gaping chasm between these two aspects, this led to paralysis after graduating. I had learned how to apply design thinking TO the world, but not IN the world.
What really intrigues me is the opportunity to develop new design pedagogies which synthesize these two approaches. One way I think is effective in engaging both of these aspects is the use of “design fiction,” as demonstrated by Dunne & Raby, Noam Toran, etc. I see this is as an example of how we can learn/teach how to work IN the world, by extending our field beyond immaterial labour and the service-based paradigm we traditionally work within, in order to provoke change from an existing situation into a preferred one (which, I would argue, is a suitable definition of the practice of design). This approach also addresses issues of autonomy and collaboration with other disciplines.
I don’t know if this made any sense, but hopefully this contributes adequately to a critical discourse about the potentialities of design pedagogy. Any response to these musings would be appreciated.
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Louise says:
Thanks for the comments, Elliot!
Re: Real goals for graphic design education. Hmmm… Are there? Or are there different configurations of goals depending on the values and of the various and diverse institutions (or entities in which design education takes place). (Also, if we’re looking goals, a distinction has to be made between undergrad and graduate ones.) Nonetheless I get that you’re asking a meta-question. Right on!So maybe we could say that your proposal is that as a class we could define a goals graphic design education as we see is needed — and then “design” what that Program might look like.
Also, just a heads up that the work we’ve been doing the last few weeks is to look at different models experimental/alternative (graphic) design education — both contemporary models and well his historical ones. Seems like you probably have some ones to add. And, BTW, I’m going to present a recent project of Dunne & Raby’s in class tomorrow or the near future.
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í RESEARCH: HISTORICAL EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATION
Our next step in to look at experiments in design education from the past. We’ve identified some programs and who’ll do the research as listed below.
On doing research: Wikipedia and internet are NOT reliable sources for research! Please use print resources unless the internet is the only resource. I recommend that you search through the CalArts library. There’s a search engine on the landing page. You can turn on “Search Worldwide” in drop down options. Select “Advanced Search” and add the databases, “Art Full Text” and “Art Index Retrospective.” Identify few sources that will give you the information below. Don’t get lost!
INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION:
- What is the program? (Title and bullet points of distinguishing characteristics)
- When was it?
- Why did it emerge? (What was it a reaction to? What motivated the founding?)
- What was the curriculum or model on which the program was based?
- A picture is always nice!
FORMAT/OUTPUT:
- Make sure type is big enough that we can quick identify information to compare one program with another.
- 8.5″ x 11″ pages (1 or 2 per program)
- Bring printouts to class AND e-mail to me!
PROGRAMS/RESEARCHER:
- Bauhaus – Sara
- Cranbrook 2-D and 3-D beginning with the McCoys – Sara
- Black Mountain – David
- Aspen Design Conference – David
- Bruno Munari (experiments and activities with children) – Calvin
- Ulm – Calvin
- Global Tools – Eline
- Norman Potter Construction School – Eline
- CalArts – Louise
One response to “RESEARCH: HISTORICAL EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATION”
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Here’s the assignment due for Tuesday, September 24. Please forward notification of this comment to me at sandhaus@calarts.edu. That way I’ll know that you’re receiving posts and comments on our site. Thanks!
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SEARCH METHODOLOGIES
PDFs
LISTS
New Design Ed Approaches/Curriculums
- Design Academy Eindhoven – Design BFA
- Man and Communication -Eindhoven BFA
- Otis -MFA Graphic Design
- Vermont College of Fine Arts – MFA
New Design Specializations
- Research in Art & Design
- Pratt Programs
- SVA Products of Design – MFA
- Interdisciplinary Design Practice
- MA Applied Craft & Design
- Information Design – Eindhoven
- Social Design- Eindhoven
- Master in Design Studies
- Post Graduate Research Program
- Digital Humanities – UCLA. Undergrad Minor. Grad Certificate
Experimental Programs
- School of Missing Studies
- Historical Experimental Programs
- Think Tank for Visual Strategies
- Dirty Art Dept – Sandberg
- Contextual Design – Sandberg
- Thought Experiments in GD Ed book
- Books from the Future
- Sundown Schoolhouse
- D-School
Design PhDs
- PhD in visual art and design – Leiden
New Institutions
- Design Academy Eindhoven
Shifting Design Programs (BFA or MFA?)
SAIC: School of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Rise of MultiDisciplinary Design
- Ask any student or faculty member about interior design education today and invariably you’ll hear about interdisciplinary collaboration
- —the merging of specialties
- —and professional interaction and experience.
- Students want real world experiences.
- The time for specialists has passed, and the job market of today is demanding people with unique combinations of skill sets and experiences
SCAD: Savannah College of Art and Design
- Interdisciplinary Collaboration Studios
- Interdisciplinary collaborative studios enable students from various departments from around the university to engage in design thinking and creative problem solving
- These academic exercises prepare students to enter the work force ready to lead or contribute as a team member in real world,collaborative settings
The University of Cincinnati
- Interdisciplinary Collaboration
- Reevaluation of curriculum design found at the School rather than individual Program level
- Switched to the Semester system in 2012
- Each semester is conceptually divided: form, semiotics, content, exploration, research, usability, synthesis
- 6th semester course block unifies interdiciplinaruy collaboration and solves logistical problem of
- differing class times and schedules throughout different disciplines
Carnegie Mellon: School of Design, Mechanical Engineering, School of Business
- Inter School Collaboration requirement
- One of a few programs that are placing an emphasis on the relationship between business and design
- Learning management through terms of design problem solving
California College of the Arts
- “Smart SPaces for Learning” Course
- Unites students from multple programs to designers who see space as a element and designers
- who see record as a element to redefine classrooms with new forms of spatial, material, virtual, and human/computer interaction.
- Encourages reevaluation of theory of design/ incorporates progress of technology
North Carolina State University
- Students learn to be critical users
- Teaches students to resolve tech issues not before a problem with traditional medium (ex. difference between reading a publication on a screen vs. print)
- designed to teach student how to anticipate different behaviors from readers
- Carnegie Mellon: 1st Year Drawing and Visualization Studio
- Takes students from basic drawing to animation
- Demonstrates how to see form through use of different tools and how tech can be used in the future
Dave Malouf
- calls for accesability to resources
- redesign of the apprenticeship model
- balance between formal and informal learning to accommodate incfreased need for communication between communities
- discusses the need for the designer to become a reinvented rennaissance entity
- 1. We cannot relinquish the craft of making forms as part of the designer’s role at the executive and at the strategic level.
- 2. Technology has accelerated cultural complexity forcing us to examine relationships between use, consumption, social behaviour and individual meaning.
- 3. With these changes, come complex environmental, political and economic challenges that we cannot ignore.
- 4. We must rebuild the apprenticeship model from early preindustrial applied arts in order to supplement lifelong design education.
Rethinking Education
No Right Brain Left Behind: Group that is rethinking creativity in education. Headed by Sir Ken Robinson.
Research Resources
“Design Education of the Future,” ICOGRADA IDA. Malouf, Dave. 2011
“World’s Best Design Schools,” Bloomberg Businessweek. Wong, Vanessa. 30 September 2009
“Future of Design Education: Teaching Innovation,” Interior Design. Pepitone, Sara. 1 July 2013.
School at the Art Institute of Chicago: The Rise of Multidisciplinary Design. InteriorDesign.com.Pepitone, Sara. 22 July 2013.
California College of the Arts: Working For and Around New Technologies. InteriorDesign.com. Pepitone, Sara. 22 July 2013.
The Future of Design and Design Education: Strategies for assessing the responsiveness of design programs to the context of practice,” Monzel Hughs, Karen; Anderson, Eric; Davis, Meredith; King Roth, Susan; Weightman, David. October 2011.
TAGGED RESEARCH (Tage indicates nature of interest)
2 responses to “EXAMPLES/MODELS: CONTEMPORARY EXPERIMENTAL (GRAPHIC) DESIGN EDUCATION”
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Please post a comment or reply to the e-mail letting me know that you’re getting updates from the Eduction class site! Thanks!
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í RESEARCH: CONTEMPORARY EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATION
- Name of an institution, program, practice, etc. (if it has one)
- Classification (a school, a program, a way of teaching, a way of learning, etc.)
- Very brief description of what distinguishes the model (a few words)
- Representative pic (if possible)
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Please let me know that you got this post AND please toss out your ideas and comments regarding the “straw horse” I’ve laid out.
Hello! I am typing up some of my notes and responses to the outline tonight. What form of response does everyone think would be the easiest to access?
Thanks, Sarah! The idea is to have a conversation, so please put any thoughts you have in this thread. Thanks!
Just a reminder to post your thoughts about what our goal for the class might be. What is our goal? It should be something we’d like to know about graphic design education but that’s the only constraint. As a straw horse, I’d proposed our goals as “possible directions for graduate graphic design education” (and then offered a rough outline of what we’d likely need to do the rest of the semester in order to achieve that goal. Please pitch in your ideas about what you’d like to see us achieve!! It would be good to do this before class on Tuesday and preferably soon, so we can have toss ideas back and forth.
I am curious to first discuss what our personal goals as design students are. I think the more specific we can get when defining these prospects will help to highlight what experimental models are the most useful to examine.
Also, if we take a look at the trend of graphic design growing into other disciplines, how are we going to prepare ourselves to be able to communicate with people outside of our field? One of the things that I think would be hugely useful is the presence of language classes or clubs. I would also be curious to see how exposure to a new language could affect flexibility throughout the creative process.
It might also be helpful to consider what would be the absolute worst way to create a design program. What aspects of this model do we react violently to?
Finally, I would really like to see our findings organized in a written analysis because what we are trying to figure out is a broad subject and it might help to have it in a traditional format in addition to the website.
Let me know what you think. See you on Tuesday.
I JUST REALIZED THAT AN EXCELLENT THREAD IN THE CONVERSATION END UP WITH THE WRONG POSTING (THIS IS FLAW WITH THE THEME DESIGN.) I’M PASTING ELLIOT’S COMMENT BELOW FOLLOWED BY MY RESPONSE IN HOPES OF KEEPING THE CONVERSATION GOING UNDER THIS POSTING.
Although I’ve only been present for a portion of one of the classes thus far, I thought I’d quickly post some thoughts on the goals of this course (and design pedagogy in general), as per Louise’s request.
“Possible directions for graduate graphic design education” is a great start, but leaves something to be desired, IMO. I’d propose that a goal for the course could be, in fact, discovering real goals for graphic design education, as a whole.
Throughout my undergrad, there were two streams of focus. One was the vocational side of things: learning how to use CS, hard-and-fast rules about typography, how to bullshit, digital to analogue reproduction, and so forth. Second, there was an emphasis on developing a theoretical framework to situate one’s self in. Thus, I developed a strong framework based between Situationism and post-structuralism, and vast proficiencies in digital and print production. Though, due to the gaping chasm between these two aspects, this led to paralysis after graduating. I had learned how to apply design thinking TO the world, but not IN the world.
What really intrigues me is the opportunity to develop new design pedagogies which synthesize these two approaches. One way I think is effective in engaging both of these aspects is the use of “design fiction,” as demonstrated by Dunne & Raby, Noam Toran, etc. I see this is as an example of how we can learn/teach how to work IN the world, by extending our field beyond immaterial labour and the service-based paradigm we traditionally work within, in order to provoke change from an existing situation into a preferred one (which, I would argue, is a suitable definition of the practice of design). This approach also addresses issues of autonomy and collaboration with other disciplines.
I don’t know if this made any sense, but hopefully this contributes adequately to a critical discourse about the potentialities of design pedagogy. Any response to these musings would be appreciated.
___
Louise September 30, 2013 at 8:43 pm
Thanks for the comments, Elliot!
Re: Real goals for graphic design education. Hmmm… Are there? Or are there different configurations of goals depending on the values and of the various and diverse institutions (or entities in which design education takes place). (Also, if we’re looking goals, a distinction has to be made between undergrad and graduate ones.) Nonetheless I get that you’re asking a meta-question. Right on!
So maybe we could say that your proposal is that as a class we could define a goals graphic design education as we see is needed — and then “design” what that Program might look like.
Also, just a heads up that the work we’ve been doing the last few weeks is to look at different models experimental/alternative (graphic) design education — both contemporary models and well his historical ones. Seems like you probably have some ones to add. And, BTW, I’m going to present a recent project of Dunne & Raby’s in class tomorrow or the near future.
In going through this, I have a few ideas for direction though I’m not sure I’m as organized as Louise in my outline. But to keep the conversation going…
It seems that we’ve outlined the need to decide where the field is going—or at least where, as those who’ve decided to engage in the field at a graduate level, where we would like it to go. If I read it correctly, that seems to be in line with Louise’s Part 2. This begs certain questions that we’ve begun to answer informally, such as a leaning towards more interdisciplinary work. However, a further crop of questions then arises, namely, how do we actually encourage or teach to true interdisciplinary practices. But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.
So in Part 2, we need to decide where the field is going in order to figure out what needs to be taught, and specifically, taught at the graduate level. I think this touches on a bit of the conversations we’ve been having between theory, making, and practical skills. I thought Elliot’s point about a gap between design thinking and practice to be an interesting and valid one, though perhaps that is just something that comes with time (?) From my perspective, the next link in this thought pattern is to figure out how can we contribute to what needs to be taught. What can I, as a practicing design, give to students to help prepare them for where the field is going? At the moment, if I had to teach a class, I’d probably reflect back on the teaching styles of my instructors. Might it be worthwhile to investigate if that is still the best method for instruction?
This ties back to some of the research we’ve already done. We looked at models of both current and historical forms of education but we’ve looked at them holistically. Perhaps next steps would be to tease apart these programs and see what specifically worked and how we might like to include them either in our teaching approach or an experimental program. If through discussion we can pin point what needs to be taught, how we can contribute and what experimental models we’d like to investigate further, I think then we’ll have a direction for Part 3 and we figure out what form these ideas should take.
Hope that makes sense and looking forward to hashing it out more tomorrow.
Any institutional education is a bit like practicing archery indoors, then stepping outside into the wind after graduating. Furthermore, it is hard for me to speculate directions for graduate design education while being within the very program I am speculating about, especially because I do not have an undergraduate degree in design (or a different grad degree) as a foil to my current situation.
That said, both Sarah and Elliot have good points so far. I think we need to establish some broad baselines of successful graduate design education, but this is also a difficult task because success is determined individually. Each person will have a different preferred outcome or specialization in mind within or about the field of graphic design (especially Peter Roy). Hopefully, they find the program which aligns best with their preferences, but most likely the path will not be linear. Perhaps we can find the intersection of what we deem lacking in most graduate graphic design educations with what we arrive as a group to be our own “preferred situations.”
I do think we need to speak with other design educators to escape our own insularity and just as another method of research gathering. I’m sure they each have a interesting perspectives and have been developing thoughts on this topic, as well as having a unique path that they took to become a design educator. As an outcome, I think it would be interesting to create a feedback loop through an event or publication or whatever form that allows people (perhaps these other educators) to respond and shape our own ideas.