Designer of 2015 next steps
AIGA will work with Adobe, educators and professionals to develop tools, techniques, course work and best practices to meet these trends and challenges, as well as to develop the critical competencies.
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We encourage all designers and educators to contribute to the debate, draw from the findings where appropriate and share their own application of the findings.
Further reading
AIGA is seeking to stimulate discussion with the design educators community of how curricula need to change. One point of view is presented here to initiate the conversation. This is a paper that was presented by Meredith Davis [PDF, 12.9 MB], the head of PhD programs in graphic design at North Carolina State University, at an AIGA Design Educators Conference in Boston, in April 2008. Professor Davis is an AIGA Medalist, former AIGA board member and is acknowledged as a leading voice on issues of design education and theory.
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Design curriculum should evolve beyond creating just design problem solvers. I am more interested in educating future design problem seekers. In addition to the basic design fundamentals, these problem seekers are infused with a strong academic background in design research, abstract problem-solving and influences from other disciplines that provide a starting point for asking more “why?” and “how?” questions. This inquiry allows for the design student to seek out new outcomes and opportunities besides those usually presented in the discipline. Typically graphic designers are tasked to solve very similar and stagnant communication problems that keep the field in a perpetual standstill. Graphic designers are many times seen professionally as “digital plumbers” that create printed or digital pieces that live within a spectrum of historically acceptable vehicles including: brochures, corporate identity, posters, books, signage/way-finding, websites, and interfaces. As my research in design and environmental/social sustainability has shown, the natural resources needed to produce these outcomes are dwindling and will force the field of graphic design to shift their focus to other design outcomes and larger issues.
A new design curriculum should promote discussions within the classroom that encourage the students to think at a more strategic level, recognizing new opportunities within an assigned problem beyond the typical set graphic design outcomes. The hope is that graphic design can utilize its powerful creative process to set new trajectories that respond to contemporary issues in new mediums and systems.
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