Dear Gjoko, well you did ask, so I have responded...
My own journey probably began in Northern Ireland where I was born, lived and went to school up until 1969. I applied to enter the Belfast College of Art at the ripe old age of 17, I had a fantastic art teacher Mrs Kelly to whom I am most grateful to this day. She had completed the grand tour around Italy and the like in her younger days where her skills and knowledge were second to none. Thanks to her I was now good, but not 'that' good and the College of Art promptly advised me to re-apply in twelve months' time and work on my portfolio in the meantime. Of course I knew better and went to live and work in London for a few years before successfully applying for a three year Interior Design course to attend my local Art College in London, Camberwell which had just become part of the new Southbank Polytechnic at the time.
The design courses were then, still very much run along typical art college teaching and learning principles and these formed my preliminary foundation of design methodologies and applications. When I graduated, Britain had just come through a 3-day week, design jobs were all but non-existent with many Architects and Design consultancies going bust, so I survived by going freelance, first doing illustrations and graphic design for advertising agencies in London and other businesses. Moving to the Midlands I secured a two year contract position with Trent Polytechnic as the designer for a local social research project and it was this project and role that wetted my appetite for design research.
I eventually established my own design consultancy with a 'loose' focus on research projects, although the majority were commercial retail design and branding jobs that helped me to pay the bills. During this time my consultancy rapidly expanded from branding, graphics and packaging in the very early days into product design and eventually into Museum and commercial exhibition and retail interior environments. At the same time I began working as a regular external design consultant to the commercial research unit called Institute of Consumer Ergonomics (ICE), part of Loughborough University. The range of differing research projects they pursue as well as the whole experience and its potential, really developed my understanding and enthusiasm to work in design research. At the same time, I was also focused upon Design Management as a way of making the use and application of design much more effective. I seem to recall that Jane Fulton Suri (now IDEO) was there around the time I was preparing to emigrate to Australia towards the end of the 1980's.
Upon arrival, working and living in Australia became a new learning curve and so I focused on what I knew best - the area of retail design, but also eventually secured sessional teaching roles at Griffith University, Queensland College of Art. Whilst I was now more involved with academia around the edges, you can see I had not been and was still not an academic as such, however I loved working with the students to help them understand how focused and in-depth research was the key to creating effective design outcomes. I was trying to build a new understanding of design, as a proactive profession (rather than a reactive agency), that included contemporary interpretation and relationship to art college teachings and learnings from the past that led to creativity and innovation. Ironically, something I feel art colleges have in turn lost to some degree. For example, I still take the occasional Life Drawing class or workshop as a way helping design students understand that Life Drawing for designers is not so much about drawing skills, rather it is in-depth visual research and observation skill building as well as a visual communication process that cannot really be learnt any other way.
I enjoyed the work, but was never completely satisfied, simply designing things and environments, I could always see the real value, responsibility and importance of design and thus that of Design Thinking. But again, I also see the need to pursue design thinking as 'thinking' (Heideggar) around all the issues that we face today and tomorrow, but not as the lightweight design thinking cookbooks and recipes that generate half-baked solutions and minimal understanding. I realised if I were to hope to be taken seriously in design research, I needed to complete a PhD, what I did not appreciate until I had completed the doctorate, was the radical impact it would have on my own research work and approach. Presently I am doing research in the area of how to minimise waste during fit-out, operation and de-fit of retail built environments by rethinking how and what we teach Interior Design students to design in terms of a circular ecosystem that could become a template for a Circular Economy.
Cheers
Philip
Dr Philip Whiting FDIA MCSD
Torrens University Australia
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gjoko Muratovski
Sent: Monday, 28 February 2022 10:23 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PHD-DESIGN] Research Universities and Design Education
Thank you, Philip.
I am glad to hear that. The article has generated some interesting conversations so far on LinkedIn with various people sharing it with their networks. I'd love to hear about your own journey towards design research, and I'd love to hear from the other members of this list on what inspired them to take on design research. How did design research became a career choice for you?
Thank you,
Gjoko
Dr. Gjoko Muratovski
Partner: Speculative Futures, BMW Group + QUT Design Academy Strategy Manager: Deakin Digital Futures Hub, Deakin University Innovation Consultant: Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies, Stanford University Adjunct Professor, Queensland University of Technology Visiting Professor, University of Zagreb Guest Professor, Tongji University
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