Glenn has raised a big issue (as Jacques points out) and it needs some
unpicking
He is right to say that PhD might take you away from the kind of focus
needed to work as a designer and there's no reason to believe that
Jonathan Ives would benefit from having one in his present role,
although if he decided that he would like to change direction in his
work, doing a PhD might be a good way to examine possibilities and
develop an original new position.
However it's not that simple. For a start we don't know yet where PhDs
in design will take us. Anna Calvera described this very well a while
ago when she said* that we will have to wait until this new generation
of "Design Doctors" have found their feet before we will know how they
will change the profession. More recently we have begun to see the
effects and some designers are showing that a research-led practice can
be very powerful, especially when there are genuinely new challenges to
meet.
Per Mollerup has built a very successful design practice which
consistently wins awards and his PhD thesis became an important book for
designers (Mollerup 1997). Karel van der Waarde made a doctoral study of
the problems of designing packaging and instructions for medicines and
has been successful in working for pharmaceutical companies who need the
kind of rigorous thinking that a PhD provides, although they need to get
it from a genuinely creative designer. And there are new design areas
emerging where we may lose out to clever people from other disciplines
if we don't have the intellectual preparation to collaborate/compete
with them.
A lot of the fuss we hear about practice-led research is a response to
this same issue. If designers have to hang up their creative skills when
they undertake a PhD then the doom merchants will be proved right and we
will have an academic community that lacks the ability to teach
designers how to think and operate. You cannot teach a practical
discipline if you have not lived in that discipline and mastered its
practices. (you can support some of the learning that is needed but that
is not the same thing).
But we need people to do PhDs because we have a discipline that is
confused about its place in the world. No matter how successful we are
out in industry, designers in universities need to buy into the mission
of the academy. Academics do not just pass on knowledge, they create it.
As long as design academics defer continually to star practitioners they
do not deserve to be thought of as more than technical instructors. We
may not have the opportunities or even the ability to match Jonathan
Ives' contribution but we have other opportunities and we can build a
different set of skills that will allow academics to complement leading
practitioners and really "own" their discipline. In the end Ives has to
work within the priorities of business but we have the freedom to look
further and speculate more widely. If we cannot use that freedom to
shine a light into the future for our professional colleagues then we
should stand aside and let somebody else try.
Incidentally, I don't have a PhD. But I'm a leftover from another era
and when I see the confidence and clarity of some of our best PhD
students I envy them the opportunity they have had to become a new kind
of designer. If I wanted to employ a really good teacher I would look
for somebody with a PhD who is still producing good creative work to a
professional level Of course they will not have the same portfolio as a
colleague who has been in professional practice full time while they
have been doing their doctoral research but they will have a more
flexible and critical mind which will still be working for them long
after their professional experience is out of date. (I had nearly
finished this message when I saw Tao Huang's post and I feel he has
expressed that aspect very well, thanks Tao. I'd better send this quick
before somebody else comes along and makes my effort completely
irrelevant :o)
best wishes from Sheffield
Chris Rust
* I think this was a remark she made informally a few years ago but she
has written an interesting description of the PhD programme at
University of Barcelona. (Calvera 2000)
Calvera. A, (2000) "The PhD program typographic revolutions held by the
design department of the University of Barcelona: some thoughts about an
experience and some general conclusions concerning research on design."
In Design Plus Research. Proceedings of the Politecnico di Milano
Conference, 18-20 May 2000. 330-337
Mollerup, P. (1997) "Marks of Excellence, The History and Taxonomy of
Trademarks" London, Phaidon
********************
Professor Chris Rust
Chair of Design Research Society Council
Head of Art and Design Research Centre
Sheffield Hallam University
Psalter Lane, S11 8UZ, UK
+44 114 225 2706 (direct)
+44 114 225 2686 (research admin)
[log in to unmask]
www.chrisrust.net
|
