Dear Terry, Gunnar, everyone,
Addendum to "Art & Design": the use of "Liberal Arts" is even worse. It should be punished with flogging.
On 16/09/2014, at 23:34, Gunnar Swanson wrote:
> Did you just reverse the order of the list from a and b to b and a? Since I am already confused by what you are saying, you may want to be clear about your comparisons. It is obvious to you which is which but your lists often get murky to me.
Gunnar,
Terry's classification of design disciplines looks like a philosopher naming animals based on their means of locomotion: it's a point of view, it's true from afar, but it is wrong upon close inspection and pretty useless anyway.
I would say that this taxonomical approach is wrong in particular in relation to graphic design, but... it seems that Terry hasn't yet managed to explain what is the "design" part of "design engineering".
Terry,
At some point you wrote:
> 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).
Why are those "design" activities?
And why do you put so much unrelated stuff in the same bag?
Seriously, what's CAM got to do with scrum or waterfall?
Looks like you only see as "design" things like axiomatic design (not "axiometric"), which are actually problem-solving tools or strategies that can be applied to almost any situation. Ergo, in your view, "design" equals "operations research".
It seems to me you are looking in the wrong place.
That A/B difference you are looking for cannot be found in any of the things you mention.
Not even for "engineering design".
It can only be found in the WAY you use those things.
"Design" is planning and doing.
You get a new "design" discipline whenever there is a steady demand for something that needs to be planned and done.
If there was no WWW, there would be no "web design".
If everybody was content with sitting on the floor, there would be no "furniture design".
If we were in paradise before the fall, there would be no "fashion design".
We call it "design" because every instance of it needs some planning at some point.
Does every instance get actually "designed"? Of course not, because planning has some requisites, and these are many times ignored. But that's another problem. Like we say in my country, "Spring doesn't end just because one swallow dies". The fact that there are a lot of people making garbage and calling it "design" doesn't mean it actually is.
And the same goes for those A/B items in the graphic design curricula.
I can tell you that some 10 years ago I was a teacher in a Graphic Design undergrad program, and when I arrived there the curriculum had disciplines like "Audiovisuals", "Multimedia" and "Informatics". Fortunately, I then had the chance to restructure the curriculum — the only good thing that came from the Bologne convention was this chance to get rid of all that garbage.
PS for Terry:
Your view of artists' place in the history of design is a bit skewed.
It is funny, because I found the exact opposite slant in a History of Design class some years ago...
I'll try to address this on another occasion.
Best regards,
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Carlos Pires
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Design & New Media MFA // Communication Design PhD Student @ FBA-UL
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