As someone who is not a designer, but coming from a psychology and anthropology background (yet with an interest in matters of design anthropology) I would just like to add that there is nothing in the so called cognitive sciences that has been 'proved' so far, despite its experimental approach.
You do try to minimize researchers' bias in the cognitive sciences but for every study that states 'A and C have a negative correlation when B intervenes' there at least two other studies that state the opposite, or reframe the A-B-C study as inconclusive. I am not suggesting people should not know what goes on in the cognitive sciences, all the more design students. As I am not a designer, I would not have the competence to judge on that. Yet what I also think is that in moving across different fields there is a temptation of representing these fields to other sciences as more 'exact' than they actually are: the cognitive sciences have marketed themselves quite successfully in that particular respect.
I really enjoyed your text. Provocative to say the least.
Regards, Pedro
--- On Wed, 24/11/10, teena clerke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: teena clerke <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Why design education must change
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Wednesday, 24 November, 2010, 0:33
Don's views eerily echo Tony Fry's from more than twenty years ago. Despite his focus on Australia, the critique remains relevant more broadly. Briefly, he classifies much of the writing on design (at the time) as 'celebratory, critical commentary or promotional rhetoric' (p. 7), and identifies the following historical areas/practices as problematic (my summary):
* historically, design responses to broader social/national/political/economic needs can be seen as a series of urgent 'natural design crises';
* the professional status of design and history of design promotion (of the importance of design) is problematically insular and self-congratulatory (design has a 'moral right' to exist as a stand alone practice/discipline);
* conditions of connoisseurship and canonisation ('good design' does not win by merit, mates' clubs and design awards, and so on); and
* the historical problem of art education 'doubling up' as design education.
For the full critique see:
Fry, T., 1988, Design History Australia, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney.
For a succinct version, see:
Fry, T., 2002, Approaches to the Historical Study of Design in Australia, in M. Bogle (Ed), Designing Australia, Readings in the History of Design, , Pluto Press Australia, Annandale, pp. 7-14.
cheers, teena
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