The more I write on the subject of design education the more I find others have been there before me (which is a good thing). In Is Design Important?, Gunnar Swanson says pretty much the same things I say in Graphic Design Education Is Failing Students but seven years before me. I wish I'd had his piece to hand when tackling my former colleagues on the need to change our curriculum.
Gunnar refers to Paul Rand and I'll have to revisit his writing as I had always read Rand as being supportive of a broad design curriculum, but Gunnar's citation suggests I have been misinterpreting him. Certainly the assertion that a "student whose mind is cluttered with matters that have nothing directly to do with design� is a bewildered student" in Design, Form and Chaos is one I would take strong objection to (though I'm wary of taking it out of context - I haven't read the rest of the book, yet). In my view, a designer should be a polymath, interested in everything.
I'd like to quote Gunnar's article in full (I'd like to pretend I wrote it!), but I'll just quote his final paragraph - head over to his site and read what he has to say on this and other subjects. Thanks to Tom Gleason for the heads-up. I hope someone from the "other side" of the argument is willing to enter into a bit of (good natured) debate on this topic.
"The interests of the design business have traditionally driven design education. It is time to reconsider whether that is really in the interest of design education, design students and, for that matter, the design business. The pace of development of the design business has, in the past, allowed for the kind of consideration and analysis that a maturing field needs. The current changes in design leave little time for practitioners to reflect and that is unlikely to change. That room to grow could be provided by design studies that are independent of vocational concerns. Without such a balancing force the graphic design business is in trouble. With it we could discover that design is, indeed, important."
After you've read the full article, take a look at Graphic Design Education as a Liberal Art: Design and Knowledge in the University and the �Real World� from 1994. I think I'll stop writing the mega-post I was burning the midnight oil over as it says much the same thing to the extent I'm glad I found Gunnar's site before I got accused of plagiarism! Ten years on, though, maybe it's time to revisit the issues - certainly this debate is not happening in the UK as much as it needs to.
Visual Communication: From Theory to Practice
(Winner of 'Best Higher Education Title' at the British Book Awards 2006)
by Jonathan Baldwin and Lucienne Roberts
More Than A Name: An introduction to branding
by Melissa Davis and Jonathan Baldwin
3 comments:
I remember being very disturbed by Gunnar's quotation of Rand. It seems to be taken out of context and is, in itself, an incredibly ambiguous statement. Rand is simulataneously known as a very broad thinker and an ignorant charlatan. I don't think there is a "correct" way to see him (--it's possible to be both, and most people are), but in general it seems "right" to NOT interpret people who are clearly not ignorant as being examples of ignorance. That's why it feels so "wrong" when you read Gunnar's quote. Rand's trilogy opened me up to a broader kind of thinking about design, without leading me away from a concern with visuals.
While criticism of Rand's vision, where narrow, is possible, it was a bit of a stretch to use that quote to make the kind of point that Gunnar was trying to make.
That makes sense to me. The book is out of print in the UK so I can't see the quote in context, but it doesn't quite chime with the rest of what I've read of Rand.
I managed to get a battered and, sadly underloaned, copy of Design, Form and Chaos from the university library. Having quickly read the first part of the book I'm uncomfortable with a lot of what Rand is saying - he doesn't support many of his opinions and I think a lot of people would take issue with what he says, for example, about the use of market research in design. I find that one paragraph I'll be in agreement with him, then not, and his approach reminds me of the archetypal "guru" design tutor who says different things to different people, or contradicts themselves shamelessly in a critique in an attempt to look clever (which I would never do, oh no... ahem). It's interesting reading, for sure!
His definition of extrinsic and intrinsic judgments in looking at design (page 6) seem to me to be the wrong way round, suggesting that decisions on content and meaning are subjective, while judgments on aesthtics and beauty are objective. This suggests that taste is universal, surely? Or that what experts pronounce as "good" is, therefore, good.
This argument reminds me of Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty in which he defines the characteristics of beauty in such a way as to suggest an objective approach, but it doesn't hold water with me.
Post a Comment