Thinking About Design Education

Design Professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Kerry Polite (2004) published his thoughts on what are today’s [2004] ‘most important questions in design education’. He offers a personal observation to the nature of contemporary design education, in comparison to its historical origins:

‘In the past, students and educators dealt mainly with four or five principles: composition, typography, form, colour and drawing… Today, students are expected to be skilled technicians, be knowledgeable in a range of software programs and work with sound, motion, and interactivity’.

Polite explains how design students need to ‘slow down and think’, to be working for ‘content-driven, not style-driven’ design solutions. The problem, he pitches is how today, ‘Students want to rush in and make finished projects…’ and ‘…because they have been bombarded with very slick visual stimuli their entire lives, the work tends to look derivative.’

This observational discussion offers an interesting [if, concerning] perspective on how important it remains to embed and praise design thinking, research, experimentation and relevance.

Thinking About Design Education was published by the AIGA in 2004.