Hello,

 

Erik's posting  about Design History brings to attention its academically
rather weird position in university-based Design Education curricula.

 

Until relatively recently (since the 60s), Design education in Art and
Design  has  lacked theory foundations. Instead, it has used guidelines such
as 'contrast', 'repetition', 'colour wheel' etc combined with teaching
designers about what has been done in the past from examples, via Design
History courses..  

 

In the  non-academic craft context prior to Design being taught in
universities,  teaching design history makes sense as a way of teaching
through examples of the work of others. In that craft design education
environment design history has a central role. 

 

Design education in the Art and Design realm  is now, however, a university
discipline with increased use of theory that encapsulates and provides
increased generalizable knowledge compared to observing past examples of
designed artefacts . 

 

In university, subjects are taught without this dependence on reviewing
historical examples.  All other disciplines in this academic context, focus
primarily on teaching theory, concepts and theory-based practices.
Historical issues are integrated into that teaching and hence, there is no
need for a purely historical course to be a major element in their
curricula. For example,  If a course was teaching the use of Planck's
constant , it would occur in a  theory course and, in focusing on the
theory, may in passing mention the historical knowledge that Planck
identified it in 1900. Certainly, the use of Planck's constant  would not be
taught primarily via  History course and the theory derived there. The same
framing  happens in all academic subjects including History.

 

In  the discipline of History in university, the educational use of
historical analyses differs from that common in Design .  Educationally,
historical analysis typically offers three benefits:  a)  as a means of
teaching  the skills of reasoning  and critical thinking that engenders
awareness of and avoidance of fallacy and bias ; b) as a corrective to
current biases and false assumptions; and, c) as an exposure to the
development over time of social considerations. The latter, however, is
almost certainly more easily taught in ways other than by using history as
the primary frame.

 

It seems that design education is currently disadvantaged by using Design
History  where more theoretically-based courses would be more appropriate,
and design education does not take advantage of the above three benefits of
using historical  analyses in the Design History courses.

 

The above seems to  suggest the transition of Design into university
requires changes to the balance of the curricula that reduces the role of
Design history as a primary means of design education. Part of that change,
as all other disciplines have discovered,   is a significant reduction in
the role of historical examples in education. The requirement for
disciplines to develop theory is to improve efficiency and effectiveness in
teaching, learning, and professional practice. Experience in most areas of
design that have already made the transition to universities are that
designers who are taught primarily via generalizable theory constructs
rather than historical examples can design across more realms, do it more
reliably and better address design issues that are not contiguous with past
examples. 

 

Taken together, it appears there is a need to rethink Design Education in
ways that have a much less central  role for   'Design History', and,  in
terms of the length of time Design education has now been a university
discipline, this rethinking would appear to be becoming overdue.   The
potential benefits are better thinking, better skilled and more creative
design graduates with more employment opportunities. This, in practical and
ethical terms, would seem to trump the costs of avoiding rewriting curricula
and moving away from practices of an earlier era. 

 

Best wishes,

Terence

==

Dr Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI

PhD, B.A. (Hons) Eng, P.G.C.E

School of Design and Art, Curtin University, Western Australia

 

PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks, Western Australia 6030

 <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]   +61 (0)4 3497 5848

==