Dear all,

This is Chris Kueh, a Malaysian pursuing PhD in Design at Curtin University, 
Western Australia.  Am now back in Kuching (East Malaysia) for Christmas and 
New Year break.  Just happened that I was helping up in a pre-departure 
briefing session yesterday, for new students who are going over to Australia 
for further studies. My role was to share some of my experiences I gained 
overseas.

Out of the many conversations, there was a student asking about the future 
and working opportunities in Visual Communication Design (Graphic and 
Multimedia Design).  As I was explaining to him, I found myself started to 
categorise (Malaysian local) Design Industry into different levels according 
to designers’ educational qualification.  I was able to afterwards reflect 
on these and found some issues, based to my own observation and previous 
experiences in the local design industry:

1)  Designers with Diploma in Design:  This category of designers (majority) 
tends to work as a ‘technician’ in the industry.  They work as main Desk Top 
Publishers (DTP) in which involves minimum conceptual thinking. These 
designers compete with self-taught designers who work mostly as free-lancers 
and charging way below levels, in which lowering prices is their main 
selling point to grab clients’ attentions.

2)  Designers with BA Degree/Honours/Masters:  These designers treasure and 
(try to) practice conceptual visual communication through different medias.  
Small numbers of them have successfully strived to work as Art/Creative 
Directors in local and international design/advertising firms.  Some of 
these designers, especially those who have earlier exposure to overseas 
design industry and market, have also succeeded in owning their own design 
firms, dealing mostly with overseas clients.  Unfortunately, there are also 
quite a handful of them who can’t set foot in the working environment that 
they desire and ended up working overseas.  Some were found even struggling 
for businesses in competition with designers from the 1st category.

3)  Designers with PhD:  It is very rare, in Malaysian Design Industry, to 
have designers with PhD to work as design consultants.  Among the small 
numbers, most of them are academics in local universities (in which design 
research and its application is not yet evident).  Many are working 
overseas.

Malaysian society, from what I see, is a growing society in which a 
well-shaped Design Industry (as in Design of all kind) will definitely be of 
the country’s benefit.  I therefore put forth the above reflections, and 
search of your opinions in the questions below:

1)  Do these categories of designers also exist in design industry else 
where?
2)  Is design education the only way to overcome the issues I mentioned 
above?
3)  Who should we educate?  Designers or the society?

Happy Christmas everyone!

regards,
Chris

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