The New Economy Is Here

The New York Times asks an interesting question that could be asked of UK politicians too:

Why do presidential candidates touting their concern for the economy pose with factory workers rather than with ballet troupes? After all, the U.S. now has more choreographers (16,340) than metal-casters (14,880), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More people make their livings shuffling and dealing cards in  casinos (82,960) than running lathes (65,840), and there are almost three times as many security guards (1,004,130) as machinists (385,690). Whereas 30 percent of Americans worked in manufacturing in 1950, fewer than 15 percent do now. The economy as politicians present it is a folkloric thing ...

It is that the transition is over. The new economy we have been promised is in place. ...The ‘jobs of the future’ that were promised 20 years ago are here. Choreographers, blackjack dealers and security guards have replaced factory workers as the economy’s backbone, if not yet its symbol. New economies have always required a kind of initiation fee of those who would participate fully in them.

(Via The Creativity Exchange.)

Eye Forum: first thoughts

I really enjoyed the Eye Forum on Design and Education in London yesterday (22 January), although in the build-up I managed to get worked up about whether I'd be completely inarticulate or not. So I'm mightily relieved it's over, even though I wish we could have gone on for longer. I think most of what I said made sense, wish I could have been more controversial, and apologise if I sounded like I was shouting all the time - the microphone wasn't near me so I tried to compensate!

Design and education are two of the worst fields to work in, and to research, because everyone seems to think they know more about them than you do. Thinking about it, I should have gone in to law because even though that's an area where people think they know better, at least you can jail them when you disagree. I went in to this debate thinking it would be a lot more argumentative than it was, but it turned out to be remarkably consensual. Maybe we should have cracked open the wine before we started instead of at the end...

I was a little disappointed with some of the questions, many of which seemed to regurgitate long-running debates that I thought had been put to bed. This was an opportunity to tackle some important issues about the future of design education, its relationship with industry, the role of the Design Council and Creative & Cultural Skills, the links between research and teaching, and so on.

However, on reflection I suspect that the fact these issues did not come up tells us a lot, especially that most people are simply not aware of them. The more I look in to CCSkills, for example, the less convinced I am that their claim to represent industry should be accepted without question. Their consultations don't seem to have raised their profile, and their policy pronouncements haven't filtered through to those they will affect. If I have to explain who they are once more I'll start charging them.

Similarly, the role of the Design Council needs to be questioned as, indeed, it is being (especially by itself). I'm not sure the Council is doing itself any favours by allying so closely with CCSkills and the Government, and the consequence is that it will be seen as yet another agency that education has to deal with alongside others like the Sector Skills Councils, the QAA and so on. That is in large part a misrepresentation, but it's a real one. Lots to think about there.

It was good the audience had a high proportion of students in it, although they were reluctant to speak up until the very end when one of them seemed quite angry that we were suggesting the role of design education is not simply to produce designers - that produced the only applause of the evening (from another student at the back), and we should have explored that further if we'd had the time. I guessed the motivation came from the fee-paying nature of education and the idea that paying fees enters you into a contract for a definite 'thing', in this case entry to a particular job. I could be misinterpreting that, of course - it may well be such a specific promise was made to that person and I did say that if we claim a design education will make you a designer, and that there's a design job at the end of it, we're lying.

Ken Garland got up at the end and asked a question that made me rather angry, especially as it seemed to completely ignore the previous ninety minutes of discussion. Again I could have misinterpreted him, but the way his voice modulated as he said that design education is vocational and this means there are 'just too many design students' made me think this was his personal view. Accordingly I took him to task. In fact his question was remarkably similar to the one I asked in my first ever blog post 'Graphic Design Education is Failing Students' when I dismissed the idea that the role of design education is a simple one of supply and demand.
My main argument on the night was that restricting design knowledge to a select few was a sure way of ensuring that design becomes a niche activity, opening up a space that will be filled with self-taught designers - exactly the sort of design-poor scenario I think the 'rationers' are worried 'over supply' of design graduates will create. (There were a few rationers in the audience it turned out who simply didn't listen to what we were saying, which worried me a bit)

But I simply think the idea of rationing education, no matter what the subject, is stupid, and I'm not afraid to call someone who thinks that 'stupid', no matter who they are.
However, we do have a responsibility to ensure that our courses are liberal enough that we aren't just churning out designers, but graduates. I'm fairly sure (in fact I'm convinced) that this is precisely what is happening - too many design courses turning out 'graphic designers' no one wants rather than 'designers' we all need. So maybe Ken and others are right to be concerned, but wrong to prescribe rationing as a way of improving the situation. Very wrong.

We could have done with another hour, but as one of the questions we missed was along the lines of 'is design art?' (oh good grief, no, it isn't, why are we talking about this again?) and another on graphic authorship (or 'design wank' as I like to call it), and as it was getting rather hot, we concluded at just the right time.

So talking of conclusions, what can we deduce from the evening?

• There is a large amount of consensus that the purpose of higher education is to educate, not to train, and that the needs of society and students are not necessarily those of employers who are increasingly demanding a say in what we do without making any sort of offer in return (e.g. funding). To cow tow to industry's 'needs' rather than society's is idiotic and short sighted.


• There is no such thing as 'the industry' with one collective voice, so to align what we do to 'industry' is impossible.


• Design is an intellectual activity and we need to raise our game in the quality of student we recruit, and industry needs to stop talking about design in ways that makes it seem to be simply a visual and decorative exercise.


• There is little awareness of what it is academics do all day, or the mess of policy and pressure being placed on us.
• People seem to think the role of universities is to teach current skills instead of developing new ones, and developing new technologies and knowledge.
• And there is a need to get across how difficult it is to teach everything under the sun in three short years. Partly this is down to us communicating what we do a lot better, but it is also incumbent on the Design Council to start singing our praises a lot more instead of insinuating we're crap (which is the impression we get, even if it's not intended), and on industry to engage more with us (usually we're told we have to engage more with industry, but the fact is we do, and we try, and we find it difficult to break in).

I could go on, so I will! I'll write posts on individual questions and link to them here later.

Thanks to LCC for hosting the forum, to my fellow panellists for a stimulating discussion, my various friends and former students for putting me up on my trip, the audience, the questioners, and of course Eye for asking me.

As well as my thoughts here you can read (or add) your thoughts to the forum comments thread over on Eye's blog.

Kitten murderers

Mmmm... kitten. In gravy.

The Definition of Irony

From Typography.com

Reading level

Apparently...

Bisexuality, crotch-staring and loads of totty. Kids TV today...

Children's television isn't what it used to be

An actor who says he was unfairly dismissed from the hit BBC children's programme In the Night Garden made unacceptable comments to a colleague, an employment tribunal heard today.
Isaac Blake, 28, who brought the unfair dismissal case against Teletubbies producer Ragdoll, made continual reference to 'totty' on set, a statement from a colleague said.

Blake has alleged that he was sacked from the programme after he complained about a faulty animatronic suit he had to wear as a Tombliboo character. He also claimed that he was called 'bitch' and 'faggot' by a colleague.

However, this morning Marcus Difelice, representing Ragdoll, read out statements from production staff alleging that Blake had made inappropriate comments to them.

One of the statements read: 'Isaac was always making comments to me that were not acceptable.

'I had to say to him once, 'Why can't you have a conversation with me without looking at my crotch?''.

Another said: 'He [Blake] kept saying he was distracted by the totty on set.'

Blake denied doing so.

The tribunal in Birmingham also heard evidence from Italian actress Elisa Laghi, 31, who performed alongside Blake during filming in 2005 and 2006.

She admitted calling Blake a 'bitch' during an argument, but said she had used the word 'faggot' on only one occasion, in jest.

She said she had walked into a changing room and saw Blake and another actor who played a Tombliboo with their trousers down.

'I said, 'Oh, you two look like a pair of faggots,'' Laghi said.

She added: 'I'm bisexual myself so I don't have a problem with people being gay.'

Blake said he had been unfairly dismissed because he had raised concerns about health and safety from being in the animatronic suit and about verbal abuse.

'I think if I had shut my mouth, taken the abuse, worked in a faulty suit, I would still be there now,' he said.

Ragdoll is contesting the unfair dismissal case. The hearing continues.

Four outcomes of teaching

Not sure I agree with the thesis of this Guardian article, but this paragraph is nice:

Numerous studies show that the bridge between teaching and learning is sometimes a bit rickety, and that what we might think of as great teaching doesn't necessarily result in the most learning. Teaching and learning is a transaction that has four possible outcomes. The first and second show an easily understood cause and effect: either the teaching is good and kids learn stuff, or it's crap and they don't. However, there are instances when the teaching is great and the kids learn nothing, or, strangely, occasions when the teacher couldn't knock the pedagogic equivalent of the skin off a rice pudding but the kids still get multiple A-stars.

That last bit is interesting in the context of universities with good reputations. I visited one in the south of England once where the staff on one course (Fine Art) had a policy of only recruiting students who were already so good, they could piss off and carry on doing their own work rather than worry about teaching them anything. The bizarre thing is, as a result of the place becoming legendarily difficult to get in to (because standards were so 'high') it acquired a reputation for being good, despite the fact it wasn't...

Desperately seeking students

The Guardian reports:

Up to 40% of Japan's 744 universities could go bust, merge or close in the next 10 years, according to research by a British professor at Oxford, out later this year.

Decades of falling birthrates have shrunk the number of 18-year-olds, who provide 90% of all university entrants, down to 1.3 million last year from 2.05 million in 1992. With no baby boom or immigration influx on the horizon, the figure is expected to further plummet to 1.18 million by 2012 - an overall decrease of 42.3% over 20 years.

[...]

'To survive the global competition among universities, each institution in Japan is trying to create a unique selling point for itself,' he says. 'For example, there are universities that focus on attracting office workers to study part-time and those that are trying to recruit as many foreign students as they can.'

Japanese universities are also starting to teach classes in English in a last-ditch attempt to recruit students from outside Japan. Waseda University is one example. Its international studies faculty now runs the majority of lectures in English.

Japan's predicament might ring alarm bells for those in the know in the UK. The number of our 18-year-olds is predicted to fall dramatically between 2010 and 2019 because of fewer births in the 1990s. By 2019, there will be 120,000 fewer school-leavers in the population than a decade earlier. By 2050, the proportion of 15- to 24-year-olds will make up just 11% of the population. It was 16% in 1990.

[...]

A Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) paper, Demand for Higher Education to 2020 and Beyond, argued that closing the gender gulf by getting more boys into university was crucial to maintaining and expanding numbers in the sector. But the thinktank's director, Bahram Bekhradnia, does not think the demographic decline we face poses a threat to the majority of institutions.

Those that could be hit, reckons Gerstle, are the less prestigious, the recently founded and those in rural areas.

Good grammar not included

This ad appeared today on my website



Fills me with confidence

A Walk Up The Fife Coast

This VoiceThread tells the tale of a walk I made last summer

"Graphic design? That's for students who are thick!"

According to The Guardian:

Schools will be ordered to offer impartial careers guidance to pupils amid concerns that teachers' 'sexist' attitudes are promoting hairdressing courses to girls and construction apprenticeships to boys.
The education bill due to be debated in parliament today will also force schools to promote all qualifications to pupils equally - including the new diplomas which ministers hope will eventually replace A-levels.

The moves are part of a drive to improve careers advice before the school leaving age is raised to 18 in 2015 under the central proposal of the education bill.

The children's secretary, Ed Balls, said: 'I'd like to see all young people considering a range of options before they decide what career path to go down. I want more young women being encouraged and supported to have a career in engineering and more young men being encouraged to have a career in childcare.'

I wonder if this will have an impact on design? Does it need to?
At the moment I guess product and graphic design have a 50/50 split between male and female students (at my last university there were more female students studying graphics than male IIRC). But more craft-based subjects are still dominated by women.
I'd be interested to know if this is a result of careers advice at school, peer pressure, or selection procedures at colleges.

Yet in the graphic design industry, it does seem that despite the even split at university, the 'girls' disappear so maybe it's not school careers advice that's the problem?

Having said that, gender issues aside, it would be nice just to get careers advisors to understand design a little better - but that's not their fault, it's the industry's.

Attitudes can be changed quite easily. A few years ago I gave a talk to an open day audience of potential students for a graphic design degree. Most of the questions, of course, came from the parents who weren't entirely convinced their kids were making a wise choice.
In my talk I bigged up the intellectual aspects of studying design, to make it sound less 'dumbed down'.

At the end, as everyone was leaving, a woman stayed behind. She introduced herself as being from the local schools career service. "Thank you for that talk, it was really interesting" she said. "Up until now I'd assumed graphic design was for students who were thick!".

Selecting versus recruiting in the design industry

Kevin Stolarick points out something I've been wondering about for a while over at Creativity Exchange:

Employers want the employees and the skills they provide ... but don't have any real understanding of what they really want.  Failing to develop that understanding means retention is an issue.

This chimes with my guess that when employers claim that graduates aren't as good as they could be (something that drives Creative and Cultural Skills's agenda to replace academics with practitioners in design education) what is really happening is that their recruitment policies are at fault. (If you recruit someone and they're not very good, look at your recruitment procedure before you blame the teachers).

Hiring graduates without firstly thinking what you're going to offer them beyond a job you think they should feel lucky to get is not a way to recruit talent, and I can't help feeling that people who complain there's a lack of quality graduates only have themselves to blame - those quality graduates do exist but are giving them a wide berth.

Certainly I've known a few former students of mine turn down 'opportunities' (read 'unpaid work experience with no guarantee of a job at the end of it') at supposedly 'good' agencies in return for jobs that offer decent money, responsibility and - most importantly - a life.

In universities there is a difference between a 'selecting' course (one which has more applicants than places and can filter through to get the most promising students) and a 'recruiting' course (one which has to offer more places than there really are in order to fill it because a certain proportion will turn them down).
I wonder if this is what's happening in industry? It's not a lack of talent, and therefore the fault of courses and teachers, but a lack of appreciation of what it takes to get and keep quality employees. And a lot of businesses aren't used to making the switch from the filtering and selecting method of finding staff to that of active recruitment and retention.

Made me laugh

Helicopter parents

I like the term "helicopter parents" for those who hover over their children while at university - it's something we're getting used to, especially at open days and interviews. But this Guardian article suggests that they're now popping up at recruitment fairs and negotiation with employers on their offspring's behalf:

It's the hectoring call that university tutors have learned to dread: 'Now, about my son's/daughter's latest assessment - that B grade clearly can't be right.'
They've been at their student children's open days, interfered with the Ucas form and swooped in to challenge anything from essay marks to college accommodation.

Meet the helicopter parents, so-called because they hover over their children, interfering and directing their lives in a way that would probably have embarrassed standard pushy parents.

A phenomenon already established in the US, British universities are now beginning to suffer at the hands of the new breed, particularly at careers fairs.

Helicopter parents oversee their child's first graduate job application, prep them for tests and interviews - and have even tried to renegotiate starting salaries.

Paul Redmond, head of careers at Liverpool University, said their arrival was evident at careers fairs across the country last year, and that some students had been barged aside. 'In future we will have to be more open and say it doesn't look particularly impressive to have your parents with you at a fair,' said Redmond.

'Several high-profile graduate recruiters have reported incidents where parents have contacted them to negotiate a starting salary. Others have had parents contact them to complain about a 'child' who has been overlooked for promotion,' he writes on EducationGuardian.co.uk.

Companies have also complained that recent graduates have had everything done for them by their parents - to the point where they cannot get to a meeting. 'One senior investment banker told me how recruits in her firm were unreliable when it came to attending off-site meetings,' said Redmond. 'Despite picking up salaries well in excess of £30,000, their attendance could never be guaranteed.'

(Read in full)

Headteachers' views on the new 14-19 diplomas | Schools special reports | EducationGuardian.co.uk

A worrying report from The Guardian for the 14-19 Diplomas due to launch this year, one of which is aimed at the creative industries. Seems that heads are either lacking in knowledge of the qualification, or highly sceptical of it. I suspect the same is true of employers and universities, although they at least have three or four years before they'll start to see applicants with the qualification. Schools, however, are a different matter as they're supposed to be offering this to pupils in a few months.

The response from the government in the article seems somewhat blasé.

The government has a long way to go to convince secondary headteachers that their new, and much trumpeted, diplomas for 14- to 19-year-olds will be a success. This was one of the findings of a survey, published for the first time today, of 803 UK primary and secondary heads' views.
The study, which quizzed heads on diplomas, social services, school trips and other topics in November and December, was carried out by Education Guardian and educational consultants EdComs, and administered by ICM.

It reveals that the majority of heads are cautious at best when it comes to the new diplomas, which will be offered from September. None of the secondary heads told pollsters they would definitely recommend the qualification to a student aspiring to go to university.

While the government's chief qualifications and curriculum adviser, Ken Boston, has described diplomas as 'the biggest development in examinations anywhere in the world', heads are playing it safe before diving in.

More than a third of heads (35%) said they had not entered into a consortium of schools, further education colleges, businesses and other organisations to work together to deliver the diplomas. This is despite the fact that by 2013, a quarter of all 14- to 19-year-olds are expected to be sitting the qualification, and that five types of diploma begin next academic year.

Ninety-three per cent of heads told pollsters that parents and pupils were 'not knowledgeable' about the new qualifications. In fact, 19% said they themselves were 'not very knowledgeable' about it. Two-thirds said teaching staff at their schools were 'not knowledgeable' about them and 79% said the same for local employers.

This might be one of the reasons why 58% of heads said they had failed to garner support for the diplomas from local employers and were 'unsatisfied' by the interest businesses had shown in them.

And, worryingly, almost a third of secondary heads (31%) are in the dark about what diplomas actually are. They described them as 'a vocational qualification, leading straight into employment'. In fact, they have been designed as a cross between the vocational and the academic. The most advanced diploma carries a higher score for university entry than three As at A-level.

Just 24% of secondary heads thought they would provide the academic rigour for progression to university.

When asked what the two biggest challenges for the diplomas were, the most frequent responses were getting university endorsement (46%) and getting parental endorsement (31%).

Mike Best, head of Beaminster secondary school, a mixed comprehensive in Dorset, took part in the survey. He says its results show 'the future of the diploma is not clear as far as heads are concerned'.

"one thing you learn is how to bullshit and talk in intellectual sounding ways when describing your work"

From 2blowhards.com: Art School Confidential:

I really dont understand the point of art schools anymore because according to most art professors and critics, art is solely about creativity. you cant learn creativity. professors are therefore completely useless and actually a hinderence because if they give input in the design process then they take away your creativity and make it theirs. and so as a result they throw their students an assignment, the students work on their own and then the professor comes back in a week or two and 'critiques' the student's work. they always have with them a few of their art/arch/design world friends in tow. this allows the professors to show off their contacts, builds loyalty between the professor and their guests and also allows the professor to show off and try to act real intellectual in front of their friends so that they invite them to their critiques. i know this because i study architecture at an art school.

one thing you learn but again on your own is how to bullshit and talk in intellectual sounding ways when describing your work

if you want to learn art avoid art college and find a weekend classical art course.

Design skills need to be expanded

The Logic+Emotion blog has an interesting analysis of Nike's online strategy which is well worth reading especially if you are interested in social networking. Towards the end of the article, it reiterates what a lot of people have been saying for quite some time (since the early days of the web, in fact, if memory serves): being a designer isn't just about creating the look or the structure, but about much more besides, and companies like Nike or the agencies that work for them need to be investing in different design skills:

In 2008—if you think this is a direction you want to invest in, here are a handful of skills/people you may want to look for.  Keep in mind, these are not actual titles, they are more skill sets.

Digital Information Designers

Not all designers know how to design lots of content in the online space.  One you get into scrolling pages with lots of content, multimedia and features—you need people who know understand the art and science of information design.  More specifically, you need good digital information designers—there's a difference.

Content Analysts/Architects

Content-rich sites require content analysts who can organize and categorize large amounts of content in their sleep. While flashy micro-sites relied heavily on talented flash designers—content sites rely on content analysts putting some deep thought into the best ways to display, distribute and serve up content (think multiple devices, feeds etc.).  These individuals will also understand how to integrate and aggregate content that may be coming from the 'outside' also known as 'user generated content'.

Community Facilitators/Curators

People who understand the nuances, cultures and social etiquettes of online communities will be in high demand.  Those who can moderate, facilitate, create and maintain conversations will be critical to adding life to site experiences like this.  In addition, people with skills in this area understand how to reach out to existing communities and can help extend brands into this space without being too heavy handed or contrived. 

Niche Editors

Going up against content-rich providers on the internet such as Web MD is probably a waste of time, however the internet thrives on highly specialized niche content.  People who understand how to edit and serve up this specialized content—making it both valuable and convenient will be in demand.

There's a vast range of skills here but in summary the article is saying interactive media design needs people who understand society and culture, who are able to tap in to diverse networks (often outside their own areas of interest that they will need to respect), know where the experts are (a key journalistic skill), and the information organisational skills of a librarian.

In other words, more than just what I think most people think a 'designer' needs to be taught.

There is of course another argument - that projects like socially-based websites need to stop relying on jack-of-all-trades designers (and expecting courses to produce them) and instead start recruiting journalists, subject specialists and librarians. But to do that we have to stop building little fences around 'design' and start attracting people from other professions and disciplines in to the field.

This has to start with truly interdisciplinary courses - in education we have to stop using 'the portfolio' as the entrance requirement (especially at postgraduate level) because that will stop the scientists, medics, athletes, lawyers, accountants and so on studying design. We also have to reassess what we consider to be 'core' skills for a designer.
I think there's a fear that opening up our gene pool to others will produce unpredictable mutants, and that there'll be a loss of the 'traditional' designer.

That's actually the point.

(Via Logic+Emotion.)

Insightful article from the BBC

Glad to see my license fee producing in-depth analysis from the BBC

Update: here's another one. What's going on?
The URL for the story below is odd: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7173051.stm

Seems to me that a few stories are being posted in the wrong place, or the wrong links are going up. Whatever, it's all very strange.