______________________________
R o b C u r e d a l e
Professor, Chair Product Design
College for Creative Studies Detroit
201 East Kirby
Detroit MI 48202-4034
Phone: 313 664 7625
Fax: 313 664 7620
email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.ccscad.edu
______________________________
>>> Ricardo
I agree with some of your points but didn't suggest that this was the only gauge of success. Working designers understand that commercial success is necessary to sustain employment for designers. The choice between Cad or sketch comes down to cost in a market economy. Product design cannot escape the demands of a market economy. To design a curriculum without considering the skills looked for by current employers across the world or the history of development of skills over centuries would be utopian and naive especially for a large university. 800 students who may not find employment will not thank you. This is not to say that change of some type is not warranted. Higher education in this country is more influenced by market forces than in Australia and parts of Europe. Was it George Washington who thought that good government stayed out of people's lives as much as possible.(I am sure Ken knows more about the history of private enterprise in US education than I do because I am a relative newcomer to the United States)
>>> Ricardo <[log in to unmask]> 11/24/03 19:55 PM >>>
This market-oriented component is only one part of a definition of
successful industrial design. To consider these criteria as sufficient is
misleading.
The reason is primarily that in determining market share there are a
variety of factors that sit outside the design realm. Examples of external
determinants include trade barriers, subsidies, dodgy corporate practices,
and trade agreement violations to name a few. Other technological factors
may also take part. It is therefore both unrealistic to attribute
commercial success to the designer and incomplete to use commercial success
as a synonym of design success.
Designers should develop their own evaluation criteria within their design
disciplines. Sternberg et al (2003) propose a topology of contributions to
the field as an example. Kuhn's (1974) -widely misinterpreted- idea of
paradigms and revolutions is another example. Using a similar approach, a
design artefact could be assessed by its role in transforming the field it
comes from and in some cases even other fields (i.e. Kuhnian communities).
This is relevant because it leads to a deeper issue directly related to
'Design in the University'. The design artefact in this case is the
curriculum. The designers are the authors of the proposal. And participants
in this forum are (part of) the field. The idea that professional
practitioners that graduate from UC Irvine should be modelled after the
perceived demands of the corporate world resembles a market-based design
process of higher education.
There are various arguments for and against this utilitarian approach
-including the fact that many disciplines become irrelevant since they may
not conform to existing job descriptions. Let me address just one issue to
which designers can relate well. It is widely agreed that innovative design
artefacts cannot be expected to emerge from a market-based approach.
Marketing is constrained by beliefs and judgements of what exists. To
transform the field it is necessary to build hypotheses of what *could*
exist. This cannot be the subject of study for marketers since imagined
artefacts need to be formalised in some way to be assessed. This synthesis
takes part within the design realm. To affirm the opposite would be to
define design as optimisation.
It is easy to transpose this into the sketching vs CAD debate. As Goodman
(1976) noted, paper and pencil are by no means transparent media. Their
universality is only due to the process of familiarisation over the years.
Take McCullough's (1998) example of the learning curve of young children to
dominate the expressive power of paper and pencil. The point is not which
media (sketching or CAD) should be taught. Or which one is superior (one
would expect that CAD systems will become less obtrusive over the years the
same way paper and pencil took time to become widely available, affordable,
reliable, durable, etc). The point is neither if one should substitute the
other. The 'big claims' days of computers in design are mostly over. Now
designers tend to see new media as enriching our toolbox rather than as a
threat to our accumulated years of experience.
So, should design students learn to sketch or to use fractal geometry?
charcoal or genetic algorithms? clay or Maya? Trivial discussion.
Subjective opinions all as valid. Each defended by people who have mastered
them. The point is that we should think of a design curriculum for the next
decades and for practitioners that will be still designing in the year
2040. What needs to be taught (via sketching or via whatever) is the
'designerly ways of thinking' (Cross, 1998). What *these* are is of course
a matter of another discussion only indirectly covered in this discussion
so far.
This is important because designing a curriculum based on current job ads
does not seem as a promising way to contribute to the generation of design
knowledge. That seems more a way to design apprenticeships programs. I have
seen enough people that concentrate on learning a piece of software the
same way others used to focus on the best watercolor techniques. But only a
few become interested in reflecting (and reading!) about the real
implications of representation. Those who are only interested in the former
are usually called 'artists'; those who are only interested in the latter
are regarded as 'scientists'. They both have nightmares about each other
taking over design. They both emphasise the shortcomings of the other.
However, there are reasons to believe that designers need to engage in both
doing and thinking (Schon, 1983).
This discussion keeps reminding me of what Csikszentmihalyi (1997) says
about the creative flow: "Keep exploring what it takes to be the opposite
of who you are". Every recommendation to 'be' creative sounds like taken
from a design textbook. Yet design tribalism cultivates sectarian views.
References:
- Cross, N: 1998, Natural intelligence in design, Design Studies, 20(1), 25-39.
- Csikszentmihalyi, M: 1997, Creativity, Flow and the Psychology of
Discovery and Invention, HarperCollins, New York.
- Goodman, N: 1976, Languages of Art, an Approach to a Theory of Symbols,
Hackett, Cambridge
- Kuhn, T: 1974, Second thoughts on paradigms, in F Suppe (ed), The
Structure of Scientific Theories, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
pp.459-482
- McCullough, M: 1998, Abstracting Craft, the Practiced Digital Hand, MIT
Press, Cambridge
- Schön, D: 1983, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in
Action, Temple Smith, London.
- Sternberg, RJ, Kaufman, JC and Pretz, JE: 2002, The Creativity Conundurm:
A Propulsion Model of Kinds of Creative Contributions, Psychology Press,
New York.
At 08:02 AM 11/25/2003, Rob Curedale wrote:
>My idea of "Commercially Successful" would be:
>
>Sold in reasonably large volumes.
>A product which extended the companies market share and market geography.
>Remain in production a decade or more
>Good profit margins
>
>These are success indicators from the manufacturers point of view. Often
>museum curators do not take these factors into account when they select
>products to display but these are the reasons why companies employ and
>reemploy industrial designers. Users have different success indicators in
>evaluating a design. I think that the price is not important but
>successful design does not need to be expensive. Ikea seem to have a good
>model.
>
>The chairs which Eames designed for Herman Miller are still made in
>relatively low volumes. I visited the factory a little over a year ago and
>they seemed to be running production batches of around 20 of the plywood
>and leather ottoman Lounges and Raye Eames Stools. These Iconic pieces of
>design cannot be making large profits for Herman Miller today. The Aaron
>Chair I would consider to be commercially successful.
>
>
>______________________________
>
>R o b C u r e d a l e
>Professor, Chair Product Design
>College for Creative Studies Detroit
>201 East Kirby
>Detroit MI 48202-4034
>
>Phone: 313 664 7625
>Fax: 313 664 7620
>email: [log in to unmask]
>http://www.ccscad.edu
>______________________________
>
> >>> Kjetil Fallan <[log in to unmask]> 11/24/03 11:52AM >>>
>"EAMES DID HAVE A DESIGN CONSULTANCY AND DID DESIGN FOR CORPORATIONS,
>INCLUDING IBM WHOSE LOGO HE DESIGNED"
>
>Ray AND Charles Eames (Wife & husband) did have a design consultancy and
>did design for corporations, e.g. furniture for Knoll. (Although I thought
>the IBM logo was the work of Paul Rand). But what interests me here -
>since the term "commercially successful" was introduced to the debate -
>is: What is a commercially successful product? (or a designer of such) -
>Can Eames' outrageously expensive furniture designed for Knoll be called
>commercially successful? Maybe, since too many rich people have been
>stupid enough to pay way too much for a chair and thus made the production
>commercially viable. But to me, this triggers the question of economics,
>which is (at least in the world of design history and design museums)
>shamefully neglected.
>
>Shouldn't price be an important factor in the qualitative assessment
>conducted by us as historians and curators? To me, good design is
>available design (in addition to all other criteria, of course). I have a
>hard time appreciating a product as good design and a commercially
>successful product unless it is affordable. This is no vendetta against
>the Eames's - it applies to a disturbingly large part of the designs by
>"famous" designers. Nor are the designers the only ones responsible -
>manufacturers naturally tend to squeeze every last dime out of the "Great
>Name" they have been lucky enough to commission (or paid big royalties for
>to get a license). As I see it, this is yet another problem created -
>often in retrospect - by the annoying quest of turning (parts of) design
>into art.
>
>I am sorry for the digressive topic in these conference days.
>
>Regards
>
>
>Kjetil Fallan, Research Fellow & Doctoral Candidate
>Dept. of Architectural Design, Form and Colour Studies
>Faculty of Architecture and Fine Art
>Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
>
>N-7491 Trondheim, Norway
>
>[log in to unmask]
>
>+47 73595023 (office)
>+47 90937874 (mobile)
-- Ricardo Sosa
SID: 200036769
PhD candidate, 3rd year
Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition
Faculty of Architecture, University of Sydney
http://www.arch.usyd.edu.au/~rsos7705
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