Part I: Remapping the CurriculumOne of Six Views of the AIGA Design Educators Conference
Quotes by Jon Kolko
Shelley spoke on "Described the changing qualities of culture and society and the new demands placed on design educators in driving specialization toward fields like service and interaction design."
Christopher Vice - spoke on how "We must actively and aggressively reframe design education in order to best meet the challenges facing our world and culture."
"For most of the field’s history, educational programs in graphic design have taught students how to create artifacts. That involves a number of core competencies, including but certainly not limited to color theory, two-dimensional design, three-dimensional design, typography, composition, printing and prepress, packaging, digital prepress, logo and mark creation.
But the world has changed, and professionals rarely focus exclusively on printed material. In the last 20 years, the overall landscape of design has shifted:
— From single artifact-systems to design language systems, focusing on a unified visual and semantic message across multiple printed pieces
— From one-way communicative artifacts, such as brochures, to interactive artifacts, such as software
— From designed artifacts to “design-thinking,” where the focus of the design process is applied in the context of large-scale business, organizational or cultural problems
— From commercial goods toward service, emphasizing time-based, human and more experiential qualities of designed offerings
Suggestions:
1. Recast the Foundation
(good, because I only took one foundation class.)
2. Specialize and Differentiate
I think we should also integrate the skills that are specialized and different.
You need verticals ex: human factors engineering, typography.
"— Focus on service design or interaction design. "
"— Focus on partcipatory design"
"— Focus on traditional design specialites"
We're not designing artefacts - maybe we're not even designing ways of thinking (as that may simply be impossible).
We are designing methods of thinking, we design the pathway and the specific prompts within them.
Changing Design Education
"increasingly questions consumption and advertising, which are at the heart of industrial and graphic design disciplines." "There is an increased demand for service-based jobs as our country re-evaluates economic sustainability. People are demanding quality, reflective and meaningful experiences in their world."
"The subject of design is the humanization of technology, and as long as technological advancements continue, so the pragmatic and day-to-day jobs of designers will continue to morph. And so must design education continue to evolve."
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Questions I pose, to myself and maybe prompts for others to think about:
What is your vertical (deep area of specialization)?
It may be something that can spread across a wide domain, or be applied to other domains.
How to make the game more meaningful and effective.
How to make it more fun? We'll get to that after we address the basics.
We must "dramatically revamp their courses or face irrelevance." That is I am a test tube baby, a prototype generation for design education.
Cameron Tonkinwise asks, "If designers are innovative creatives why are they so very tame & lame when it comes to redesigning design education" (via Tiwtter @camerontw)
Possibly because professors are scared of becoming irrelevant and design students are afraid of studying a discipline that does not exist yet. Although, that would be parcipatory design for design education - crafting the discipline as you define it. Additionally that would be creating the cirriculum as it is taught. Some of the main barriers to redesigning design education may be based in the fear of it becoming an act of blacksmithing design education.
Full text: http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=22988
Update
Jon Kolko is now heading up the Austin Center for Design, which has a focus on social design and real world impact.
They aim to create impact by "emphasizing creative problem solving related to human behavior, through the use of advanced technology and novel approaches to business strategy."
Learn more about ACD here: http://www.austincenterfordesign.com/
Jon Kolko from Ix11
