Jacques,
> When asked why he replied that designers,
> unlike scientists, are not trained to be skeptical
The problem is not just the grand level but on a relatively mundane scale. As much as we'd like to think that designers are "creative thinkers," thus likely to question everything, there's something about the notion of a "service industry" that invites order-following. Perhaps more than other design fields, graphic design students often decide that "the real world" demands creativity only in the fulfillment of very specific demands. Despite the old joke:
Q: How many graphic designers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Why does it always have to be a light bulb?
it's a constant struggle to get students to get out of the mentality of a McDonald's drive through window. "A logo and a brochure? Four color or six? Want gloss varnish or fries with that?" [Sorry if this makes little sense to those of you who live places where you get out of your cars to eat.]
I spent much of last semester getting a group of my seniors to do what they though a client needed rather than what they thought they heard the client say they should do. I reminded them that I had been doing this for longer than they'd been alive and that even if I were wrong there was no financial penalty for permanently pissing off a client since this was a class and they weren't getting paid anyway. That did little to reassure them.
Since their last client presentation most of them now seem to believe my constant statements that you had to be able to think about design to talk about design and that talking about design is the way you get to do the sort of design that makes it a worthwhile job.
I see all of that as being on a practical/vocational/practitioner level. That's not even close to the skepticism that a researcher ought to have.
Gunnar
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