Mike

Thanks for taking the time to respond, and clarifying points.

On 22/02/2018, 15:58, Paul Mike Zender wrote:

  -snip-

> 
>I'm not sure I understand what you mean in asking "is this always within
>a professional Communication Design?"  I'm curious to know if you don't
>mind explaining it to me.
  -snip-


What I mean here is the kind of professional Communication Design activity
advocated in the AIGA documentation. This might be compared to a graphic
designer working within a organisation, such as a large retailer. I¹m
mindful here about one of my students who recently had an interview for a
graphic design job at the department store, Selfidges, on Oxford Street in
London. She was told that they were looking for a Œgraphic designer¹, not
a Œgraphic communicator¹. I would not generally consider that sort of
environment as being a professional Communication Design situation, and
there are others I can think of where Communication Design is not a
familiar professional practice.

  -snip-

>Your work on the UK/Aus and Educator's Network sounds interesting. I'll
>give you a little more detail offline about UC and our wrestling with our
>curriculum and the name of our program.
 -snip-

I¹ll let you know more about this offline, and it is a Œwrestling' match.

> 
>
>-snip-
>thinking through making / research through design
>-snip-
>I'm not sure I understand what these mean. Perhaps you or Gunnar or
>others can clarify.
>I would not put a slash between them as if they were different ways of
>saying the same thing. IF thinking through making generally describes the
>typical design process, we certainly teach that many times over to
>undergraduates at UC. IF research through design means using the design
>process of thinking through making to do systematic investigation that
>aims to produce generalizable knowledge, then we engage undergraduates in
>that in one or maybe two courses.
 -snip-


Sorry, I¹m crossing threads here with the 'Thinking through Making versus
Research Through Design¹ discussion, and Don¹s suggestion they are one and
the same. I like them meaning the same thing but the slash was just a
convenient way to group them together.
> 
>
>-snip-
>how might you explain it to parents
>-snip-
>The link above tells you exactly what we tell parents! It's couched in
>familiar terms that parents can relate to. In my experience, non-design
>people understand design in terms of the objects we make: logos, Nike,
>Apple. In personal presentations to parents and prospective students I
>try to expand their vision of design by holding up a smartphone and
>asking whether it is an industrial product or a communication device, and
>their answer is "both" - which is right. But students and parents
>definitely start by understanding design in little d terms as the objects
>we make and they see.
 -snip-


This is a version of a question I ask students who are being interviewed
for a place on an undergraduate programme. Coincidentally, the
conversation quite often leads to a discussion about how they know what
time it is when they wake up in the morning Š for example, what do they
look at, such as the dial on a clock or the digits on a smartphone.
Usually, their thinking about what graphics is has not yet reached that
level of basic understanding, but I do not frame it as communication
design as that¹s not what they are applying for. It¹s my favourite
question. 



Thanks again Mike, 

Most helpful.

Robert


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