Hi Gunnar,
Sorry about the delay in replying - I wanted to think a bit first.
I agree with your your suggestion that it is better to look at specific
situations and users. It is clear from the Ohio, La Clusaz and Perth conference
s that there are specific PhD issues that relate to Graphic Design and
the other fields of designing that were once sited in Art and Craft institution
s. I understand that your postings relate to these issues and are addressed
from your experience and interests.
There is a different and larger picture of design research, and it was
this that my post was pointing to.
Yes, of course I include those designers in engineering domains as part
of this larger picture. In fact, I regard engiineering designers to be
a subset of a much wider group of technical designers that include those
designing all sorts of policies and plans (designs for the future) using
the content knowledge of all sorts of disciplines.
One approach to getting a quick look at the scale of this picture is to
notice (for a day for example) everything one sees that is designed, and
to identify all the different types of designer that have supported it
coming into existence. This is a picture that soon grows: steering wheel
->car->road->road direction->driver education ->road camber->drainage
system->traffic management->safety->health->economic planning->employment
planning->social -planning->local government structures->national government.
. . .
A practical and simple example. I am sat in my office looking at some
IKEA timber bookshelves. They consist of four different sorts of timber
elements, one kind of coach bolt, special twisted plated mushroom headed
nails, a zinc plated cross brace, and four small zinc plated screws. It
is fastened together for transport by a glassfibre reinforced plastic
strap whose ends are crimped with a zincplated steel sleeve. It has a
small black and white label with assembly instructions and several small
barcode labels all attached using a pressure sensitive non setting adhesive.
There are designers (almost certainly all of different specialisms) who
were involved in:
* - designing the overal configurarion
* - designing the coach bolts
* - designing the fancy nails
* - designing the cross cutting machine for the timber
* - designing the four head cutters for shaping the timber
* - designing the drilling machine for the holes for the bolts
* - designing the nailing machine and its jigs (though this may be a different
designers job)
* - designing the nailmaking machine
* - designing the wiredrawing machines from which the nail blanks and
the coach bolt blanks are cut
* - designing the steel smelting machines
* - designing the material content and properties of the steel
* - design the policy standards for grading the wood
* - designing the diecutting machinery for cutting the labels
* - designing the printing machinery
* - designing the software used to create the print instructions for labels
* - desinging the hardware systems from computer to printer for the labels
* - designing the barcode system
* - designing the labels
* - designing the plating machine for the fancy nails
* - designing the chainsaws to cut down the timber
* - designing the debarking machine for preparing the logs
* - designing the saw mills for planking the logs (this includes a plethora
of building designers/safety designers/ road designers etc/environemental
designers/economic policy designers)
* - designing the cross brace (and the machines for making and plating
it)
* - designing the plastic strap
* - designing the machines that make the galssfibre and the plastics for
the strap
* - designing the paper making machinery
Now each of the machines/ buildings etc mentioned in the list is also
made of components that were designed and these designers should also
be included.
The above list is incomplete, and as I'm writing I can think of many more
different sorts of designers who were involved in management,transport
systems, accounting systems etc.
As you can see there are many more designers involved than graphic designers
(and this is a relatively non-technical artefact).
This is my first point. There are a lot of different designers involved
in the artefacts that are in regular use in humans lives
The second point concerns the problems due to the education of designers
(i.e anyone who creates designs) being bounded by subject specialisms.
I can think of hundreds and perhaps thousands of designs for artefacts
that either underperform or are seriously problematic because of potentially
resolvable inconsistencies between elements caused by these elements being
designed only using the knowledge of a limited range of discipine areas.
There have been attempts to resolve this problem through the use of multidiscip
linary teams of specialist designers. This approach offers improvements,
but in the limit is likely to be bounded by the lack of flexibility and
variety in the modes of thinking of the specialist participants.
An alternative is to train designers across disciplines: to train multidiscipli
nary designers. Some of the Engineering disciplines have already started
to go down this track and are including substantial graphic design, communicati
ons theory, and social science courses in their degrees and research programs.
Similarly, some of the Computer Science and Management Information Systems
courses I know are including graphic design, color theory, ergonomics,
typography and communication theory courses along with training in the
usual software for designing graphics and websites as significant parts
of their degrees and research.The bridge the other way is not so obvious.
I don't know of any of the Art and Craft design courses that are, for
example, offering training in mathematics. This, in the longer term, may
be problematic because a substantial amount of the worlds accumulated
knowledge is explicitly (and very efficiently) encoded mathematically
with the purpose of making it available across disciplines.
The usual argument against the above approach is that there isn't sufficient
time to train multidisciplinary designers in all the the subject specialisms.
It is not clear, however, from my own experience that this is the problem
that it is made out to be, and that it is not resolvable by good course
designs.
In research terms, real, useful to solve, problems are not tidy and discipline
specific. One of the key aspects of undertaking research at the PhD/doctoral
level is to identify the limits of the research findings that can be applied
to the problem in question (thanks Bryn for last friday). This requires
researchers having the skills to be able to ferret out and understand
research findings in many disciplines - and strict subject specialism
doesn't help. It may be that the best avenues for training researchers
of designing and designs is through the disciplines that already bridge
disciplines; management and systems are two obvious contenders.
Finally, doctoral education is in a process of significant change. Much
greater emphasis is being given by government funding agencies to the
value in research findings, innovation and research skills that countries
acrue from their substantial investment in educating students at this
level. In other words, a key question for those developing future phd
and doctoral programs is 'What is society, industry and the government
likely to get out of it?' The ability to answer 'We are training designers
(as creators of innovations to benefit society, industry etc)' is likely
to become valuable beyond the realms of Graphic Design.
This is a long winded way of saying that I feel that it is important
to make sure that plans for doctoral education for designers take in a
big picture, and not take steps that could be problematic further down
the track - especially in a siutuation where the environment is changing
rapidly. It is on this basis that I felt concern that the 'PhD in Design'
was being defined in a limited fashion as a PhD in 'designing using knowledge
from the visual arts'
Best wishes,
Terry
_________________________
Dr Terence Love
We-B Research Centre
School of Management Information Systems
Edith Cowan University
Perth, Australia 6018
Tel +61 (0)8 9273 8682
Email: [log in to unmask]
_________________________
========================================
From: Gunnar Swanson <[log in to unmask] >
To: Internet Mail::[Terence Love <[log in to unmask] >]
Subject: Re: the political role of [graphic?] design doctorates
Date: 8/11/01 12:13 PM
Terry,
I'm a bit confused about what you're asking for. I do not assume that
the focus of design Ph.Ds nor of design research is solely graphic
design. I had several reasons for focusing on the design Ph.D in the
context of graphic design in my questions:
1) I am a graphic designer, graphic design writer, and former graphic
design and multimedia educator so this is an area where I best
understand the issues. (I am also American so my other reasons
reflect a similar "what I know best" bias.)
2) Although clearly not, as you say, the sole field, I don't know
about your assertion that graphic design is not the largest. I have
not done an exhaustive survey so am running the risk of Ken's
scrutiny of this statement but my very clear impression is that here
in the US there are many more graphic design programs than other
design programs and the total number of students is significantly
higher. (My guess is that there are greatly more graphic design and
multimedia students in the US than all other design students combined
unless we are including engineering fields as design.) The greater
numbers mean that there is a large demand for new faculty in graphic
design and multimedia design in the US, making them areas where
questions of changing standards are most likely to be played out.
3) In the US, graphic design programs are much more likely to be
stand-alones--in universities that do not have any other design
programs--than are other design programs. Graphic design programs are
often newer than other design programs. Thus the political
ramifications of changing standards are less likely to be insulated
by a thoroughly-entrenched design faculty.
4) As a designer (and, more specifically, a systems designer) I tend
to treat proposed curricula, socio-political changes, etc. much the
way I would treat my design work. To think about how any proposed
design might work one is best off positing specific situations and
specific users.(1) Unless the answers to "How would this work with
graphic design?" are clearly universally applicable, the next obvious
question would be "Okay, so how would it work with x design?" (You
can choose the x.) To some extent, the choice of what specific
example one chooses to posit is arbitrary so my question would be:
Why not graphic design?
5) For the sake of efficiency, my experience as a systems designer
points to considering first the specific situation that is somewhat
representative but might also reveal the most particular problems,
thus allowing a view of how the system might deal with variety.
Graphic design seems to me to be a field that is assumed to be firmly
in the world of generalized design but also has a large set of
peculiarities so consideration of graphic design might be
particularly revealing.
If your objection is to the notion that some Ph.Ds in design would
concentrate primarily on graphic design (or any other specific field
of design), are you suggesting that specific design fields be
abandoned by universities in favor of undifferentiated design?
There is a tendency in US universities toward what could be dismissed
as vocationalism but is, for better or worse, a consideration of
future professional practice in education. Without getting into a
debate over definitions of education vs. training, design (and
specifically graphic design and multimedia design) programs have
greatly benefited in the US from this shift. How would a move toward
unspecialized Ph.Ds as design faculty fit into this? If the answer is
"It wouldn't," what alternatives does such a change offer?
How do you see this philosophical consideration of
cross/multi/interdisciplinary designing and designs impacting the
world of working designers?
It is that last question that particularly interests me since the
rhetoric (including my own) surrounding the academization(2) of
design generally suggests that practice will be enriched by the new
intellectual energy. Is that solely an article of faith or do we have
a specific notion of how this enrichment would take place? Design
practice is somewhat specialized. There are notable exceptions but
the grand notion of architectural/product/textile/clothing/graphic
designers is not representative of any design world that I have seen.
I may be going on at length completely based on misreading your post.
Were you just objecting to our hijacking a title? Is the notion that
there would be a Ph.D in Design but also a Ph.D in Graphic Design
which would be quite separate?
If so, that brings up a question I posted a week ago (which has of
yet had no response): There is a tendency in these discussions to
talk broadly about design with an underlying assumption of
commonality. On what basis do we assume that commonality? Would
graphic design, for instance, be better served by relying on, in
addition to graphic design itself, art, communication, etc. to a
greater extent than it relies on a field of generic design? Might a
parallel set of reliances exist for other design specialties?
In other words, is "Design" really the reasonable central focus of
the various design fields and is "Design" the best educational and
training focus for future practitioners of various design fields?
I think there are many people on this list that know me and/or my
writing well enough that they do not suspect that I am advocating
status quo for design (graphic or otherwise) education nor that am I
interested in either vocational training or designers whose education
is solely vocational. I do think that there are questions that need
to be considered here that could have grave effects on (at least
American) universities and I happen to be at least partially a
Devil's Advocate by both nature and occupation so please do not
consider my queries as obstructionist but rather as an attempt to
understand your collective and individual visions.
Gunnar
>Dear Gunnar, Danielle, Lubomir and others focussing on graphic aspects
>of designing,
>
>The debate on PhD in Design seems to have drifted into the assumption
>that the focus is solely on graphic design. Graphic design is an important
>field but it is not the only field in which designing is undertaken nor
>the largest. Bryn has drawn attention to some of these other fields.
>
>It is perhaps more appropriate to use a specific title such as 'PhD in
>Graphic Design' rather than 'PhD in Design' when talking about research
>into designing in the Graphic Design tradition. This leaves the more
generic
>title for a broader award relating to philosophical aspects of research
>into cross/multi/interdisciplinary designing and designs.
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Terry
(1) I state that as an article of faith based on a couple of decades
of design practice and will not be offering literature citations to
back that up.
(2) Sorry, if there is such a word I have no idea how to spell it.
--
Gunnar Swanson Design Office
536 South Catalina Street
Ventura CA 93001-3625
+1 805 667 2200
[log in to unmask]
http://www.gunnarswanson.com
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