Hi Gunnar,
Good call. Thank you. I didn't explain the type a) and type b) thing very
well as you noticed!
What I was trying to say was that most design fields (in the bigger Design
discipline) have seemed to have found it useful to be clear about and keep
separate on one hand 'background information and data' (type a) and on the
other hand 'the knowledge and skills about how to design' (type b).
This kind of difference occurs in many ways in other fields. For example in
the difference between a 'maker's activities' and the 'changes to the
material', or the difference between 'information' and the 'act of
thinking', or the difference between the 'written play' and the 'acting'.
In Engineering fields, it is the difference between 'engineering
data/theory/analyses' (often called 'Engineering') and 'engineering design
practices and theories about design' (usually called 'engineering design').
I'd suggested in a way that I explained badly (as you correctly diagnosed)
that clarity about the above kind of separation wasn't yet well developed in
the theory perspective of many Art and Design fields.
The above difference occurs in say Graphic Design, in the difference
between 'color theory' (type a) and 'the use of color theory by a human
while designing' (type b), or in typography the difference between
'information about leading, font metrics, kerning and typefaces' (type a)
and 'design activity involved in setting text so that when it is printed it
feels like it has a clear information hierarchy and the page has even
greyness in the body blocks' (type b).
It is what underpins, say, the distinction between the field of 'Internet
Studies' and the study of the design practices of 'Web programming'. Many
other academic and practical disciplines have alternative field names that
clearly distinguish between ' theories, information, data and knowledge
about things' and the 'skills of professional practice using that
knowledge'. I was suggesting that clarity and theoretical embodiment (if
that is ontologically possible) about this difference is still developing in
Art and Design. It seems to be clearer in for example textile and fashion
design, where the studies of textiles, textile properties, mass production
methods etc. are clearly distinct from the study of design practices
involving textiles. In graphic design, in contrast, the background
information about colour, rhetoric, communication theory are taken to be
and often classified in the teach as design skills, as you described.
I was suggesting that improved clarity about the above kinds of differences
in Art and Design fields, and deliberate distinction in language, may open
the door to attention to improving some Art and Design practices, as it has
done in other design fields.
An example, of such a possibility of improved future design practices in
graphic design would be clarity in graphic design processes about which
aspects of design activity are best kept human and which are best to
computerise and automate in any particular kind of graphic design practice -
and, how that will change in the near, middle and distant future with
changes in technology of graphic representation (e.g. the end of paper
documents and screens and everything as 3D dynamic holograms).
My apologies for making such a donkey's ears of this. I still feel I've not
explained it well.
Best wishes,
Terry
---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, AMIMechE, MISI
Director,
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
Fax:+61 (0)8 9305 7629
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--
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gunnar Swanson
Sent: Monday, 15 September 2014 3:40 AM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design
Subject: background vs design
Terry,
I tried to cut your post down to its essence so I could amend my reply but
didn't get far. In doing so, I realized that I wasn't sure what you were
saying.
In engineering design, your "a-list" (non-design) is background knowledge
and skills and your "b-list" (design) is "ability to know and use a variety
of design processes. . . and a variety of design methods. . . ." I won't
quibble about whether declaring design to be design processes and methods is
a bit on the tautological side. I'm self-centered enough to want to get
straight into your "art and design" a- and b-lists.
I'm afraid that I found your examples somewhat confusing. What, for
instance, does "web design" mean (since you noted that it was not design)?
You put forward a question but you didn't make it clear to me what the
question meant so I'll toss it back to you: What are the properly b-list
things that ought to be (but are not being) taught to graphic design
students?
I'm not sure what you're suggesting about subject matter. (Maybe I've spent
the last forty years not doing design?) I'm also wondering about what you
seem to be implying about the educational process. Your advice seems (at
least at first glance) to run counter to what I try to do as a teacher of
design (or teacher of something else?).
I would characterize my general approach as an attempt at integrating skills
with what I would consider design activity as a primary way of imparting
design knowledge and understanding. I do that for several reasons.
One is that I don't know how to completely unravel the threads so, for
instance, I really am not sure how one teaches graphic design without
teaching typography and vice versa.
Another is that I believe that the best way to learn to do design is to do
design. (Of course, there are better and worse ways to do design to learn to
do design.)
Another is that I believe that the more different ways people learn about
anything, the better they will learn. Although perhaps less than a few years
ago, my students are people who, more than most people, learn with their
hands.
Perhaps the most important reason is that the sort of design we (my
colleagues at ECU and others) do represents a sort of thinking that is
important and useful. I won't call it "design thinking" since that will just
confuse the conversation further. I refer to it as thinking through making.
It is one of the ways that many designers think. Iterative thinking aided by
rapid prototyping starts to describe it but it goes deeper than that.
Since I don't know what parts of graphic design activity you are calling
design and not-design, I'll stop there and wait for further explanation.
Gunnar
Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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On Sep 14, 2014, at 6:12 AM, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> In essence the problem is obtaining good educational balance between two
very different educational foundations:
>
> a) the back ground knowledge and expertise that designers refer to
> undertake designing activity, but which is not specific to design
> b) the knowledge and expertise that is specific to design activity
[snip]
> For example, knowledge and expertise such as the ability to calculate
> the stress in a pressure vessel, draw and sketch using ISO 128 standard
conventions, or plot the movement of a robotised packing machine linkage are
clearly of type a). They are independent of design activity In contrast,
ability to know and use a variety of design processes (waterfall, agile,
XP, scrum, CAM, CAE etc) and a variety of design methods (e.g. all the DfX
methods, axiometric design, etc) are clearly of type b).
[snip]
> The situation is some way behind the above in Art And Design design
fields. The distinction between types a) and b) knowledge and expertise
applies just as much. The understanding of the need to distinguish between
type a) and type b), however, is not yet widely articulated yet in Art and
Design.
> The question then becomes, which knowledge and expertise taught in design
schools is type a) and type b).
>
> Taking graphic design as an example:
>
> In type a) (background knowledge and skill rather than knowledge and skill
specific to design activities) we would locate colour theory, gestalt
theory, use of balance, information hierarchy, typography, theories of
emotional design, drawing and sketching skills, perspective, use of
rhetoric, web design, identity, symbols, design materials and manufacture,
human perception, culture, photography, communication, representation,
research skills, narrative, illustration and animation, game design
principles, printing, media studies, internet studies and many other topics
taught in design schools.
>
> It leaves the question about the part of design education that is
specifically about design activity, i.e. the type b) topics. 'What in design
education should be included as type b) the knowledge and expertise that is
specifically about the activity of designing?
>
> This latter is a serious question.
[snip]
> A crucial part of addressing it in the Art and Design fields, likely will
be understanding the differences between the type a) and type b) kinds of
knowledge and expertise, AND ensuring they are not confused or conflated .
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