Greetings to All,

I am currently travelling with a group of students and have been 
unable to follow as much of this valuable conference as I would 
like. However, David has raised and Gunnar has added to some 
areas of intense interest to me: design education and visual 
communication. David mentions that we have some models to 
look at within design education (he mentions Carnegie Mellon and 
the University of Applied Sciences in Köln) and potentially UCI – 
although I would hasten to add that I think it doubtful that many 
schools will rush in to revise their curriculum structures based on 
any single university program – and I feel sure he would agree. 
However, I would add that I believe that is incumbent upon each of 
us to consider ways in which we evolve our own programs based 
on what we know not just of our own programs but also the 
programs of other institutions. (Based on some rather significant 
changes in the University of Western Sydney School of Design 
where I am based, this is either a reflection of either ambitious 
optimism or madness on my part.)

Gunnar addresses the lack of consideration given to visual 
communication (one form of which I would categorise as graphic 
design) and I share that concern ot just in the proposed UCI 
program but at large. David states that he does not see visual 
communications and graphic design as different from design, and 
while I agree with this statement, how often do we disuss visual 
communication as relevant to the larger discussion of design 
research? It seems to me that this does not often occur. 

We often seem to address micro issues of visual communication 
as applicable to that area and we lump visual communication in 
with design research when it is convenient to do so but not 
because there are transparent links. There do not seem to me to 
be good examples of how visual communication research informs 
design research and I would welcome correction (especially 
extensive, detailed correction) on this point.

I mentioned that I am travelling with a group of students – and it is 
perhaps not incidental that the group is composed of ten 
University of Western Sydney students who are involved in a 
cooperative project with ten Köln International School of Design 
(KISD), which is a part of the Köln University of Applied Sciences. I 
cannot from this experience alone comment on the success of the 
Köln University of Applied Sciences as David requests but 
perhaps reflect at a later date on the KISD experience from an 
outsider’s point of view.

The inherent differences between the two schools has been a 
source of tremendous insights that I will later take some time to 
address, but suffice it to say for now that the differences are 
tremendous both structurally and culturally. This has been a 
challenge for both groups of students who have found their own 
insights into themselves, into their cultures and into their 
respective programs. It has been a significant revelation to me that 
the students, far from giving into the occasional frustration at the 
differences have found an increased and renewed vigour to 
pursue some common goals that have evolved from the initial and 
much smaller project than was envisioned, I believe.

For me, the biggest frustration with the project took place at a time 
when the students, faced with the task of a presentation to the 
KISD students and staff could not seem to move from verbal and 
written discussions to visual discussions. For each the familiarity 
with verbal discussion, in particular, over-rode the fact that the 
common language to all was the design language of sketching 
and construction. Once they embarked on this phase all went 
much more smoothly, although not without some additional minor 
hiccups. In part, my frustration was also based in the differing 
approaches to the design process in each school, but this was 
less clear to me at the time. I suspect that this has much to do with 
my own history as an editor and seeing the need for creating 
content to then manipulate to an outcome that satisfies the 
communication need or desire. This approach to design may not 
be usual but I bring, as I believe many of us does, a particular 
experience to what I call design.

David writes, >>On a related theme, occasionally people from non 
design backgrounds describe themselves as designers. They 
base this upon having been involved in some way in the creation 
of an artefact or service. They may be designers in some limited 
sense, but are certainly not designers in any professional working 
sense. There is much more to being a professional designer than 
having an acquaintance with the body of knowledge and having 
dabbled at some level.<<

Without calling myself a designer (although I do seem to have 
conferred upon me the title of design educator) I wonder just what 
it is that gets one the entry card into the designer club? I can muse 
on whether or not structural editing or developmental editing is a 
design task, but more often the need to design documents and 
look at the macro concerns of how something will be perceived 
forms the professional side of my practice. The aesthetics of how 
beautiful the resulting text or document might be is important if that 
is a necessary component of the communication (conversely the 
resulting document may need to ’ugly’ in the case of some 
audiences), but these considerations form a part of the process. 

I raise this because I suspect that there are others who wonder at 
the title of designer, not from the desire to use it necessarily, but 
rather from the desire to know if those who use it are using it from 
the associated background of education and experience based in 
design or based in any number of processes that use iterative and 
considered approaches to developing outcomes on a 
professional scale. If an artist, for example, uses an artist’s 
approach to creating work, but finds that the title designer is more 
lucrative, for example, is that individual an artist or a designer? (By 
the way, I know a number of folks who regularly cross the 
’boundaries’ here and I don’t mean to suggest that they don’t have 
title rights.) But to make the point, when does dabbling emerge as 
practice? By what or whose standard?

By the way, apologies for the unconstructed nature of this email 
posting, it's the third or so try with a remote product that has eaten 
a number of other attempts (all much better than this, I'm sure) 
and an unfamiliar German keyboard.

With kind regards to all,

Ellen Young
-- 
Ellen Young
Senior Lecturer
Course Advisor
University of Western Sydney
Locked Bag 1797
Penrith South DC NSW 1797
Phone: +61 2 9852 5423