Encouraging U.S. graphic design students to learn about other cultures

While putting up posters for Icograda Design Week in Seattle at a design school, Shelly Langton, Icograda Conference Facilitator and Volunteer Chair, was stopped by a graphic design instructor. The instructor asked her,

“why should my students attend this conference, what is this all about anyway?”

To answer the question, Shelly described for the instructor the following work experience. “We had just finished working on a business card that would be handed out to Chinese and American media. The card contained the website address the media could go to for information on the President of China Hu Jintao's visit to Microsoft. One side of the card was in Chinese, the other was in English. In order to accurately produce the Chinese side of the card, we had to find and work with a translator, then get Chinese characters/type downloaded onto our computer. We needed to figure out the colors and the direction of the type; and, keep it all in Microsoft branding.

“Being a graphic designer in a global economy requires you to think about cultures and communication in a whole new way. Designers are now required to not only be thoughtful, but also sensitive and strategic in their thinking around cross-cultural design. As China opens up, and the economy there expands, we expect to see more work like this. In other words, we are keeping the Chinese type on our computers.”

The design instructor smiled at Shelly and said, “I get it!”

Icograda Design Week in Seattle, July 9–15 will include a variety of opportunities intended to increase students' awareness of other cultures. Students will have opportunities to interact on a one-to-one basis with designers from around the world. Students will be encouraged to ask questions and to join the discussion regarding global design issues—just as the design professionals attending the conference will.

Knowledge of and sensitivity to other cultures are not just nice attributes to possess, but are increasingly essential competencies for the global design work now done by many graphic designers.

Below are some thoughts contributed by graphic designers and design educators when asked the question,

Why is it important for graphic design students in the U.S. to gain an understanding of other cultures?

“When traveling in another country we lean out the window of the taxi or train or rickshaw and have that sense of wonder at the new world around us—the smells, the foods, the buildings, the wall graphics, the tools, the vehicles, the people. We notice those things that are the same and those that are different. Mostly, we notice that we are noticing, that our awareness has been turned up a few notches. We catalog, we map, we assess. Sometimes this process produces sensations of euphoria, and at other times it feels destabilizing. The most important outcome is to change our perspective, challenge our values, engage the eyes, and keep our thinking fresh.”

Ken Botnick
Associate Professor, Director Kranzberg Book Studio, Washington University School of Art



“Design is an international phenomenon. Every culture in the world uses design, both to communicate within local communities as well as to speak to the larger world. We learn about other cultures in order to learn about people and practices that are different about our own. We also learn about other cultures in order to discover what draws us together, what we have in common, what makes us neighbors on the same planet. Other people are different from us, but they are also in many ways the same as we are. Design is a powerful force in bringing people together through shared visual languages as well as through the personal and cultural particularities.”

Ellen Lupton
 Director of the MFA program in graphic design at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Baltimore and Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum “Because the world is one village like it or not.

“Because isolation breeds conflict and understanding breeds love.

“Because our clients are global and design is the interface between companies and their publics.”

Christopher Liechty
President, AIGA Center for Cross-Cultural Design and President and Creative Director of Meyer & Liechty, Inc.


“It should be a requirement in college to study a foreign language. It could be integrated with Liberal Arts.

“Liberal Arts programs should provide classes which contain topics related to our historic profession, e.g.: Bauhaus, Gutenberg, Artist Books, etc.”

Franz Werner Professor of Graphic Design, Rhode Island School of Design



“In the U.S. we are exposed to a lot of different cultures all the time but we don't get to know them unless we really start exploring and learning about them. It's important for young designers to understand cultural differences as well as similarities so they can appreciate all of it more. By learning about other cultures they will start learning more about themselves too.

“Eventually that knowledge will help them to find their own voice as designers and will help them to create more meaningful work. A work without the borders.”

Vesna Petrovic Co-founder of Picnic Design and member of the AIGA XCD Board of Directors



“Young people are distracted by the complexities of their college lives.

“They tend to focus on the ‘me’ aspect of assignments, events and opportunities. As an educator I need to move them towards a ‘we’ world.

“Students will move into a connected global community and need to be able to understand other cultures meanings and points of emphasis and symbolic history as well as, story telling. This also includes looking at, and being sensitive to, other social economic classes outside of their own. Research and active listening are the first steps in the design process. As a designer, the first encounter with a client or community group needs to be that absorbing the need and point of action.”

Barbara JK Nwacha
Assistant Professor of Graphic Design, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville




“College must be a lab in which to experiment, a place to compare and to absorb as much as possible. As a student you are as you never, for the rest of your life, will be again—a blank page, a sponge, a white canvas. Cross-cultural experiences will help you to scratch, to color, splash, break, build and rebuilt your personal aesthetic. Your first step in order to grow as a person and as a designer is to be humble and accept the fact: it is a big world out there. As a creative person you have a gift, but realize that with that gift comes responsibility.”

Carlos Zamora Principal, Zamora Graphic Design




“It is important for students to understand the values and culture of different nationalities and ethnic groups for which they will eventually be designing.

“The ‘melting pot’ of cultures concept is radically changing in the U.S. In the process of becoming ‘American’ minorities are encouraging their children to preserve their native language and culture.

“Student's visual and conceptual vocabulary expands dramatically when immersed in a different context or culture.

“Students benefit from awareness of and the questioning of their own culture.

“By learning about other cultures, students get in touch with different needs, priorities and challenges expected from design.

“The American culture is so strong and dominating, even outside the U.S., that learning about other cultures contributes to cultural preservation and diversity.”

Patricia Cue
Assistant Professor of Graphic Design, University of Ohio




“I actually think that this concern should not be limited to students, but also to working designers of all levels. It is simply a fact of being aware of differences, specially in the U.S. where multiculturalism is present in every nook and cranny.

“However I don't think that designers should learn every single nuisance about every single culture and apply it to every design they make. In a way there is something that makes American design American and you want to maintain that to a certain extent while respecting cultural sensibilities as appropriate on a case by case basis.

“Speaking specifically of these times, I think design students would do themselves a great favor if they immersed themselves a little in Hispanic and Latino culture.

“And I am not saying this just because I am from Mexico, but because designed communications focusing on this booming cultural group will only increase and designers that can combine cultural sensibilities between this group and its American context will be able to serve a growing niche that will likely be one of the most important in the next decade.
“But ultimately it's up to any one student to decide what, if any, cultures they want to explore. Other than, as I said before, a general understanding and sensibility of existing cultures, why should students be ‘forced’ to learn about Polish culture? Or Argentinian? Or Moroccan? All fascinating, but what's the point? Which cultures do you expose them to? The ‘cool’ ones? And what do you call the course, ‘How to kern for Hispanics’? If designers do not want to learn about other cultures on their own, I'm unsure that ‘forcing’ this in a design education program would really be effective.”


Armin Vit
Founder, Speak Up
www.underconsideration.com



Forcing, no.
Encouraging, guiding and providing opportunities to learn, yes.

What are your thoughts?
Why should U.S. design students learn about other cultures?




 Information about Icograda Design Week in Seattle.