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by Anthony Cahalan
An AGDA educator's international perspective
1980s design was style; 1990s design is value and meaning.
1980s design was for profit; 1990s design is for people.
Well so said some of the speakers at "Design Futures: Design Education",
an international seminar organised by the British Council which I
attended in London from 29 March to 3 April 1998. The seminar was
limited to 30 particpants from 21 countries:
Australia (1), Brazil (1), Canada (1), China (2), Croatia (2), Czech
Republic (1), Germany (2), Hong Kong (2), Hungary (1), India (1), Israel
(1), Korea (2), Lebanon (2), Malaysia (2), Mexico (1), New Zealand (1),
Philippines (1), Singapore (2), South Africa (2), Sri Lanka (1), USA (1)
The vast majority of participants were heads of design schools or course
leaders in graphic or industrial design. It was slighlty disappointing
not to see participants from countries traditionally identified with
design such as Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Italy and Spain, but this
probably has to do with the reach and influence of the British Council
as seminar organiser.
The seminar was the best seminar/conference I have attended. It was
unbelievably professional in its organisation and running. The program,
which ran from 9.00am to 9.00pm for five days was exhausting, yet
constantly stimulating. The calibre of the 31 speakers included in the
seminar program was consistently of the highest order and the industry
visits were particularly appropriate to the audience.
Seminar highlights included the following:
- Visit to and presentation by a partner from one of the world's best
known graphic design consultancies, Pentagram.
- Visit to and presentations by lecturers at the Royal College of
Art.
- Visit to and presentations by lecturers at the London Institute
(Central St Martin's).
- Attendance at the nationally televised and satellite-linked UK
Department of Trade and Industry innovation lecture by Richard Branson
(Virgin) and the following live studio panel discussion with Edward de
Bono.
- Visit to the Design Museum, the first museum of industrial
design in the world (1989).
From a very personal perspective, the major issue to come out of the
seminar was that we seem to be on the right track with our graphic
design program at the Tasmanian School of Art at Hobart. Recurring
themes at the seminar were:
- The importance of design graduates being able to work in
multidisciplinary teams.
- The convergence of art and design and the re-personalisation of
graphic design.
- The importance of design education collaborating with and providing
research for industry and the community to provide what industry and the
community needs.
- The importance of design management within or as a separate design
course.
- The number of trained architects who are now leading graphic and
industrial design programs in universities.
- The importance of maintaining traditional skills while embracing
new technologies.
As is evident in Australia, there appears in the UK experience still to
be a dilemma between educating students for work and educating students
for life; immediate skills versus conceptual advancement:
"We are in the process of preparing people for work." (Deering Report
into UK Further and Higher Education)
"Designers are not made in college, they are made in the workplace."
(Nick Talbot, industrial designer, Seymour Powell)
"Education should be the teaching of values, not just teaching for
jobs." (Prof Dan Fern, Head of School of Communication, Royal College of
Art)
Christopher Frayling, Rector of the Royal College of Art, noted the
tremendous growth in what are being called the 'culture industries' of
music, advertising and design and cited current estimates of between
900,000 and one million people employed in the UK in these industries.
Art and design are extremely fashionable in the UK. Hundreds of art and
design short courses for 4,000 students over Easter, Christmas, evenings
and summer at the London Institute, for example, produced amazing
profits which were reinvested in the colleges which ran them.
Paul Crake, Communication Director of the Design Council, declared that
the job-for-life is gone. The emphasis in UK design education is now on
equipping students with life-long learning skills.
"There's no such thing as a career path - it is crazy paving and you
have to lay it yourself." (Robin Linnear, KPMG)
Communication, teamwork, problem solving and information technology are
the key skills required by - but currently not well labelled for -
design graduates who need to be flexible because they are being prepared
for a very unpredictable world.
In employment, the following were considered by some speakers to be
favourable qualities for a prospective design employee:
- A generalist rather than a specialist.
- A connectivist - someone who can see connections in the world and
who has a knowledge of business.
- Worldliness; a breadth evident in the portfolio.
- No spelling mistakes; get the name of the employer correct.
- Original creative skills; evidence of having a great idea;
unexpected, yet relevant, solutions.
- Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work effectively in
a team.
- Ability to make and fully justify a decision verbally, visually and
economically.
Some interesting ideas which emerged from the seminar and could be
considered for implementation in Australian design programs include the
following:
- One-day briefs from outside designers; brief presented at 9.00am
and finished work presented by students at 3.00pm.
- Changing the deadline of a 4-week project after 2 weeks by telling
the students the project is now due for completion and presentation in 2
days' time.
- Final year students must go and get a real client to pay for a job
done by the student.
- In order to encourage risk-taking among students, only 6 of the 8
projects set each year are required for end-of-year examination. The
innovative projects which worked are rewarded, but students are not
penalised for trying to break new ground.
- To address the issue of multidisciplinarity, maybe a more
generalist undergraduate design degree is required, followed by
increasing specialisation at Honours and Masters level.
In terms of constructive feedback for the organisers, the following
issues could be considered at future seminars:
- There was an incredibly obvious gender imbalance in the speakers.
The first 8 guest speakers in a row were men. Women designers and design
educators were seemingly invisible. In the end, there were 23 men and
only 8 women guest speakers at the seminar. This is in contrast to the
latest (1996) Australian census figures which show that 6,000 of the
13,000 graphic designers in Australia are women. In even starker
contrast, 60% of the 105 undergraduate graphic design students at the
Tasmanian School of Art at Hobart in 1998 are female and only 40% are
male.
- Figures quoted by different speakers were amazingly rubbery. It was
clear that nobody knows how much is really being spent on British design
education nor how many design students are enrolled and/or graduating
from UK institutions each year. My guess is that nobody has compiled
authentic Australian design student figures either.
- There was a tendency for the UK designers and educators sometimes
to 'talk down to the colonies', as if the British were the only ones
capable of doing anything innovative in the world of design. Of course,
in private discussions between delegates it was confirmed that many of
the ideas presented by the speakers had existed in other countries for some
time.
- More time was needed in the program for delegates to debrief after
each speaker or session in order to provide greater opportunities for
sharing of experience within the assembled international group.
In conclusion, the seminar was particularly worthwhile and I would
highly recommend future British Council design seminars to others. Due
to the opportunity to see, hear and participate first-hand in world
models of interdisciplinary design education, and our present efforts to
improve the efficiency, flexibility and cross-disciplinary nature of our
courses in Australia, the seminar was of critical relevance to my
teaching of design now and this will have immediate educational benefits
for me and my students.
The seminar provided additional focus, information and contacts for my
current ARC research proposals and PhD in typography. It also addressed
continuing professional and industry development appropriate to my role
as AGDA state president and national councillor.
It was glaringly obvious from this seminar that Australia is right up
there with the best design education in the world. What is considered
innovative in some of the best institutions in some parts of the world
has been implemented and happily running in Australia for some time now.
Perhaps the time has come for Australian design education to blow our
own trumpets more loudly.
Anthony Cahalan
President - AGDA Tasmania
and
Head, Graphic Design
Tasmanian School of Art at Hobart
University of Tasmania
Tel +61 3 6226 4360
Fax +61 3 6226 4308
Email A.Cahalan@utas.edu.au
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