Reading 2 - Helfand

Method Designing: The Paradox of Modern Design Education

Jessica Helfand

- Over a century ago, Konstantin Stanislavsky revolutionized the modern theatre by introducing a new system of training, in which the actor would draw on his or her own emotions to achieve a true understanding of a character.

- The good news is that in an effort to produce designers who can think for themselves, we ask our students to identify a method which becomes evident through the work that they produce.

- Such an emphasis on authorship is, by and large, a way to train young designers as thinkers — and not merely as service providers. At the same time, we encourage them to seek references beyond the obvious: the richness of their sources testifies to an ability to engage a larger universe, and their work benefits from locating itself along a trajectory they’ve chosen and defined for themselves.

- The bad news is that as a consequence of seeking validation elsewhere, there is an unusual bias toward false identity: so the design student, after looking at so much art, believes that s/he is making art.

Reading 2 - Bayazit

Investigating Design: A Review of Forty Years of Design Research

Bayazit

Design research tries to answer the obligations of design to the humanities:

A - Design research is concerned with the physical embodiment of man-made things, how these things perform their jobs, and how they work.

B - Design research is concerned with construction as a human activity, how designers work, how they think, and how they carry out design activity.

C - Design research is concerned with what is achieved at the end of a purposeful design activity, how an artificial thing appears, and what it means.

D - Design research is concerned with the embodiment of configurations.

E - Design research is a systematic search and acquisition of knowledge related to design and design activity.

First-Generation Design Methods

- The influence of systems analysis and systems theory on design established the grounds for the foundation of “systematic design methods,”

- The methods proposed at that conference were simplistic in character. Everyone was systematizing his or her own approach to design, and externalizing it as design method.

Second-Generation Design Methods

- Second-generation design methods began to compensate for the inadequacy of the first-generation design methods.

- User participation to P&D is a very wide and comprehensive subject, with its political, ideological, psychological, managerial, administrative, legal and economical aspects in relation to various countries.

Reading 2 - Leedy + Ormrod

The Problem: The Heart of the Research Process

Leedy + Ormrod

The problem or question is the axis around which the whole research effort revolves. The statement of the problem must first be expressed with the utmost precision; it should then be divided into more manageable subproblems. Such an approach clarifies the goals and directions of the entire research effort.

Basic Research

Such projects, which can advance human being's theoretical conceptualizations about a particular topic, are known as basic research.

Applied Research

Such projects, which can inform human decision making about practical problems, are known as applied research.

Axe Effect

Creative thinking - business card design ideas

Creative thinking

Reading 1 - Gunnar Swanson

Design as Liberal Art

Gunnar Swanson

We need to consider whether our attitudes toward "professionalism" in design education do the same.

By "synthetic" I mean that design does not have a subject matter of its own- it exists in practice only in relation to the requirements of given project. The path of progress for the field is not defined by the next great unsolved design problem.

Design is "integrative" in that, by its lack of specific subject matter, it has the potential to connect many disciplines.

Even while some design programs are strengthening their liberal studies requirements, the tendency toward professional rather than general education at colleges and universities has been growing for the past two decades.

In light of this tendency toward professionalism, it may seem counter-intuitive that I suggest that we not only increase the augmentation of design training with more liberal studies, but also reconsider graphic design education - as a liberal arts subject.