Sorry to be such a spoilsport but the days of 'Design as skill' or 'style' has outlived it's usefulness. Traditional design schools are obsolete. Design encompasses processes that are being developed and rapidly absorbed by everybody. At long last Design is being led out of the hallowed portals of a kind of specialised thinking that essentially belongs to the industrial age and was an antidote to the times of extreme analytical thinking. Everything is far more holistic now. Design processes are being rapidly synergised with other processes. I am all for this and look forward to the demise of the sort of design school that has defined design over the past few decades. Those times are past, they have outlived their usefulness. I will go so far as to say that unless designers can redefine their roles in multidisciplinary teams they will no longer find a useful role. We have seen the most innovative and creative ideas come from the synergy between T shaped individuals who have their specialisation dovetailed into a very generalised understanding of wide range of subjects. I am working to make design a part of the vocabulary of every university student, I hope this happens to every school student. I am dismayed by the quality of output from the design schools who basically look at design either as styling or a very uninformed version of design for the web masquerading as user experience.
They will, of course, be always needed for their skills. But Design is far too important to be left to them. May this sort of design find its place in problem solving teams without laying claim to the word 'Design'. At least not wholely or substantially.
Fix your design schools. Drop the walls that you have built to protect your turf. The times, they are a changing.
This was a response to a post on 'Design Educators in India - Facebook' from A.Bala Subramaniam - 'Is Design Education going the Engineering way in India? Every self-respecting University has announced courses in Design without having recruited faculty. No permissions needed to start a programme in Design from anybody. Curriculum development means cut-pasting from various sources. " The uninformed are teaching the uninformed" ( Don Norman). The best students take up UX jobs in spite of other specialisations. Is anyone else seeing the rot setting in?'
Also see: 'What do I bring to the table?
They will, of course, be always needed for their skills. But Design is far too important to be left to them. May this sort of design find its place in problem solving teams without laying claim to the word 'Design'. At least not wholely or substantially.
Fix your design schools. Drop the walls that you have built to protect your turf. The times, they are a changing.
This was a response to a post on 'Design Educators in India - Facebook' from A.Bala Subramaniam - 'Is Design Education going the Engineering way in India? Every self-respecting University has announced courses in Design without having recruited faculty. No permissions needed to start a programme in Design from anybody. Curriculum development means cut-pasting from various sources. " The uninformed are teaching the uninformed" ( Don Norman). The best students take up UX jobs in spite of other specialisations. Is anyone else seeing the rot setting in?'
Also see: 'What do I bring to the table?
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