Thinking about Design Education

At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, (even though dinosaurs didn’t talk, or teach design for that matter) design education today is attempting to teach more than when I went to school. In the past, students and educators dealt mainly with four or five principles: composition, typography, form, color, and drawing. You were then expected to imprint those principles with your personality and an idea to communicate a message. This was a thoughtful process. Today, in addition to the above principles, students are expected to be skilled technicians, be knowledgeable in a range of software programs and work with sound, motion, and interactivity. On top of all this, the nature of information and the world is far more complex. Perhaps this is part of the reason there seems to be less time devoted to thinking and idea development...there simply isn’t enough time. When I was growing up, the media was dominated primarily by print. New information came out fairly regularly every month or perhaps every two weeks. Think about Life and Look magazines in the 60’s. If a student needed to do research he or she most likely referred to the World Book Encyclopedia or Encyclopedia Britannica. The library was a source for recreational reading such as fiction and adventure. Later, at the high school and college levels, it became a research source. Given the speed, or the lack thereof, at which information went to press, there was still a high level of editorial integrity. Most editors endeavored to scrutinize information for accuracy. I still have my complete set of the TimeLife Science Library books from my childhood, and although the content is now almost 40 years old, it is remarkably accurate. The catalyst for this article was phrased as follows, “What do you think are the most important questions in design education at the moment?” I believe one of the primary questions is how to make the students slow down and think. Students want to rush in and make finished projects. Because they have been bombarded with very slick visual stimuli their entire lives, the work tends to look derivative. Also, the ease with which photoshop gimmicks can be applied contributes to the creation of a pool of work, both student and professional, that looks similar. This communicates nothing and is, quite frankly, numbing. In the senior design studio classes at the University of the Arts we strive to instill critical thinking as an integral part of the entire process. We begin with a text. This addresses the elemental function of graphic design, which is to communicate a message. Both semester-long, senior projects are text-driven. We want students to understand the important components of a text, (who, what, when, where). Only after identifying these points can they begin to examine how to develop meaningful solutions. This process instills a methodology for both thinking and designing that is content-driven, not style-driven. In the long term – and the short term – it makes not only the process more interesting but makes the solutions more interesting as well. From an educator’s perspective one may question why students seem incapable of doing substantive research. To begin with, the amount of material available to them is overwhelming. Without the benefit of having experienced a somewhat straightforward process of conducting research, where the bulk of the information was credible, I can understand why they seem at a loss. How can they discern the quality or value of one piece or source of information from the next on the internet? What seems logical? What seems ethical? What is plagiarism? Who owns what and why? It all seems the same. As educators we attempt to cultivate in students the notion that they have a responsibility to themselves and to society to understand the meaning of information and ideas. The students become aware of how texts and stories can be manipulated to alter perceptions. Our students work with a liberal arts faculty advisor and visiting critics who aid them in writing, original text selections and in finding credible research sources. By citing proven contemporary and historical examples and sources of quality from a variety of fields, the students start to gain an understanding of how to select reference materials. This also initiates the idea of following tangents – quality sources almost always reference other quality sources. The notion of striving for quality and accuracy will benefit their work and it’s contribution to society in the future. How does this method of research affect design solutions? If students’ solutions are formulated based on definable criteria, that work can then be explained and defended objectively. It also forces the students to move away from emotional attachments to their work in order to evaluate it systematically. This is important because it takes the personal, interpretive and imaginative aspects out of the subjective realm. A concept can be justified when it is supported with quantifiable reasons, making the likelihood of selling a meaningful idea over surface ornamentation easier. As an example, if I choose blue for the color of the type for no other reason than I liked the way it looked, I would define that as a subjective or personal decision. If I chose blue because the text was about water then I could easily explain why that decision was made and defend that choice. This approach can be applied to all aspects of design. A book format is horizontal because it is about trains; the type is exuberant because the subject is the circus; bar charts were created because data were being compared, and so on. Encouraging a more diverse range of visual solutions will only enrich everyday experience. If you think about the graphic ephemera that most designers get excited about, they tend to be a bit obscure – items such as a train schedule from The Czech Republic or noodle packaging from Japan. These items may and usually do adhere to proven design, composition, and typographic tenets yet still exude personality. These examples of individuality stand in contrast to what is becoming a soulless face in the age of the “global” corporate branded world. Through guidance and questioning, we attempt to make the students question and see that things have meaning – words, phrases, data, maps, images, color, shapes all contribute to the message and must be carefully considered. I would like the students to realize that the effectiveness of design solutions are based on the relevance and appropriateness of ideas and the ability to communicate a given message in a compelling way. At UArts the students progress through a series of exercises where they explore a variety of ways in which a narrative can be solved graphically. This is a slow process which allows for a thorough examination of the thinking, the research and the development of a diverse range of solutions. This is a process of exploration, experimentation and discovery. As I stated earlier, the students have substantial input from liberal arts faculty and visiting critics. When successful, the students truly become immersed in this process. The design solutions either succeed or fail, but in both cases, the students benefit by gaining the ability to discern the reasons behind the success or failure. This is an important aspect of this process. They are learning to see and learning to think on their own. The next step upon completion of a design education is professional practice. Today we are increasingly dealing with very fast paced projects and complex information. The ability to draw on a systematic process eases the pressures brought on by that pace. Giving students the ability to analyze and understand what the important aspects of a communication are and how best to convey that message is vital. In the end, the lessons of thinking and learning which a good design education offers should become a life-long endeavor.