As I first wrote this post, it was a pretty huge mass of text. I decided to cut it in hald and make two separate posts in order to make something a egular human being could read wihout having to take a whole day.
In this part, I discuss (with myself) what should be learned (better than what should be taught).
School Vs Self taught
As we focused on the matter of design students, we totally forgo the self taught way. Having said that, it’s a complete mistake, since most of the actual designer generation didn’t go the way of the shcool benches. Let’s face it, most of the über-talented people still went to the top of the ladder with flying colors.
School is just the perfect place to let young talents bloom but success is in no way related to a degree.
Education is a combination of things you experience during your school and work years. Having less of the first should not be what makes you fail to produce quality work.
Actually, the real problem here is pretty clear: it’s all about implication. Whether you’re a student or someone who’s working to learn, as long as you don’t give a shit, nothing will happen.
Be curious, either way.
Technique over ethic?
A good designer needs to be able to do two kind of things: think and execute. That’s a given not everyone can do. People that only execute other’s ideas are stuck in making things that they don’t always care about. People who only think can’t feel the pride of making things by themselves. What should be teached is surely a combination of both.
I liked this quote by Jonathan Baldwin, read on Teddy Bradford’s blog:
We had been looking for a paradigm shift and this was it: we currently see design education as teaching people to design. Instead we want to teach people through design. We believe that graduates need to be politically and socially engaged. You’ll never achieve that [by] teaching Photoshop and yet this is what we fool ourselves in to thinking and claiming. Instead we [need to] shift [our] approach and teach students about the world in which they are living, using design as the tool to do that and allowing them to demonstrate what they have learned through design. Learning Photoshop then becomes a skill that is picked up to show understanding of the world, not because it is a skill in itself. … [Graduates] can still design, but what they are designing is a model of the world, a worldview if you like, rather than (God help us) a double page spread and a web site.
Most trainings I’ve seen lately concentrate on software manipulation, and I strongly believe it’s pretty wrong on several levels. Graphic design does not only mean using photoshop: everybody can learn to use a software reading a tutorial. Of course you shouldn’t be stuck by technical issues when designing. But a great idea, even if executed the old school way with pen and paper, stays a great idea. On the contrary, a sucky concept, even with lots of shiny photoshop effects and images hijacks will still suck in the end.
This goes a long way into a design career. Learning techniques has to go with staying aloft about trends, society, design rules and the like. You’re a thinking maker. So don’t forget to think, and don’t forget to make.
Design process
If there’s one thing to look for in a design education, it has to be process. I don’t remember it being explicitely described at school, but all I know is that when I went out, I did know what do to at work. Researches. Sketching. Concept. Producing. Explaining. Selling. All this, I learned at school, even if there was no course with such a title as “creating your very own creative process”. Maybe I had to shift a few things to adjust to clients, but in the end, it was all the same old thing. If you want to learn design, learn about yourself and your work habits first. You have to be able to know yourself perfectly to produce high quality work on demand.
Learning and to be taught
I’m always a bit aghast when I hear people telling me they didn’t learn a thing at school, blaming teachers, when they didn’t even took the time to actually come to school. Maybe it was boring. Maybe the teachers weren’t as passionate as you expected. But in the end, if you were pretty boring and uninterested yourself, who’s to blame ? Learning is a process, not a set of things you can list. If you feel like you’ve not learned a thing, you’ve missed a point: maybe you’ve learned patience or anger or that you’re unable to go through a regular scholarship model. If you’re implicated, you’ll learn — teachers are everywhere, from the top notch art history expert, the freelancer you’ve met over on twitter to the janitor who have seen more design students that you’ll ever meet in a life.
At first, I wanted to use the word teaching everywhere. But “being taught” seemed like a passive action, something you had to go through, instead of something that you do yourself. Learning is something that you should never stop to do. No matter what. You’re born talented, but you aren’t born knowledgable about everything. Be humble and listen. So that one day you can be the one to teach.
Very well thought out post. School was nice because I got a taste of all the different places I could go as a designer. Most of the teachers were still doing freelance jobs on the side, and I feel that the way we were learning was pretty fresh. Although they were there to teach us, I did find that much of my learning came from hours of teaching myself as well. This paid off once I left school, because it’s been a none stop learning experience since.
Like you I don’t remember ever being told about “Design Process” directly. But as you said once I left school it was there, it wasn’t until I read up on it that I realized it and started to build on it.
I would hate to think that I’ll ever stop growing as a designer, The fact there is so much to learn and experience excites me. Knowing that there is a community of healthy competition out there gives me the drive to never stop learning about design, our computer programs, and myself.
a) Like everything else, learning is more crucial than being taught. What design schools must do is create an environment where the students can learn, and the rest will follow.
b) One should be a combination of thinker and doer. Only those who can maintain this balance well, will do well in the industry. Design schools should ensure they create such people, by creating a right environment. Not many trainings can ensure this though.
c) A design process should be nurtured into design students. But it should be enforced. The design process can be different for different people and different projects, and everyone should learn to accept this flexibility. There can be different design processes, but at the end of it, as you say Zelia, it’s the same old thing.
d) It is often said, “Those who can’t do, teach”. I hope this changes. One thing I learned at my design school, is that the course and the students’ caliber is built by the assignments. And the teachers need to design assignments that will challenge the students, taking into consideration it amalgamates classical and modern design, thinking and doing, and several other parameters (that I cannot completely articulate at the moment…sorry).
But Zelia, you put it very well when you say, “Teachers are everywhere, from the top notch art history expert, the freelancer you’ve met over on twitter to the janitor who have seen more design students that you’ll ever meet in a life.” It’s strange we cannot realize this, since we’re the people who are asked to have good observation skills and a watchful eye for need.
Really good post Zelia. Thanks for putting it up, and so well.
Sorry
c) A design process should not be enforced
Thank you guys for taking time to comment. About the “Those who can’t do, teach” quote, I always felt ill at ease toward it. Probably because, even if my teachers were not actually producing anything at the time, I didn’t feel that they couldn’t “do” anything. but I guess that just misplaced respect or something
) Maybe they really couldn’t do anything. Anyway, let’s all hope that we’ll continue learning in the future and that other people coming out from schools or anywhere else will do the same.