On Nov 28, 2013, at 10:55 AM, GK VanPatter | NextD <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> how product design logic projects into organizational change logic (it doesn't)
I have to admit that I don't quite understand what basic assertions are being made by many people commenting on [I'm not sure the right adjective here--"non-traditional"?] avenues for design, designers, and design-like stuff. It is, perhaps, too easy to infer dismissal that is not intended. If someone says that fashion design education is not addressing peace in Central Africa, I'm not sure whether that's meant to be a shift in conversational focus or a dismissal of fashion design.
Certainly some critics are clear. There is no reason to assume that Victor Papanek was not just dismissing commercial product design as irrelevant to the significant problems of the world but destructive in and of itself. When others say "designers could be doing x," it often seems that they mean that designers -should- be doing x and that those who are not are somehow particularly retrograde troglodytes. If I ask what's wrong with y, they often seem surprised that anyone thought they were being dismissive (even though, in many cases, they objectively seemed to be.)
I'm further confused when people point out (quite rightly, in many cases) what value could be created if designers changed focus but then seem to berate anyone who does not change focus. Often anyone who hasn't changed to the particular focus being advocated seems to be condemned.
It's hard to sort out dramatic rhetoric in favor of doing something in particular from the assumption that everyone should be doing the same thing.
It is, of course, easy to make an excellent argument that design education is narrow and mired in past practice. How thoroughly any particular design program should extricate itself from that mire strikes me as a question worthy of examination. If, for instance, someone says that the world would be better off if graphic design concentrated more on clarifying social and economic issues, I'm not sure I could muster an objection. If, on the other hand, the argument is that graphic design education should concentrate exclusively or even primarily on clarifying social and economic issues, I'd have to ask whether this makes as much sense.
If students were distributed randomly among various academic programs and they were shaped exclusively by their university educations, it would make some sense to focus each program on some ideal of future action. We could decide whether we want to encourage football, ballet, or nuclear engineering. But the fact is that most people do not start a university education with the desire or even the capability of becoming a footballer, dancer, or engineer. If we decide, for instance, that ballet is worthy and the other activities are not. . . I'm not sure we have the basis for smart curricular planning here.
I know better than to try to put words in GK's mouth or Ken's so I'm not commenting on the particular exchange. What I am doing is asking whether I am imagining an undercurrent in many such conversations where categories (Design 1, 2, 3, & 4, for one instance and art & engineering for another) do not just form distinctions but a hierarchy where it is implicitly clear that anyone doing 1 is wasting her life by not moving quickly toward practicing 4 or inventing 5.
If we conclude that product design logic does not equal organizational change logic, I hope we can avoid the unexamined assumption that one or the other is unworthy. I hope we could consider whether each has something to teach the other without the assumption that either should aspire to be the other. Once we say that they are not the same, I think it would be unwise to pretend that those who are good fits for one activity should be assumed to be equally so for the other.
Gunnar
Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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Gunnar Swanson Design Office
1901 East 6th Street
Greenville NC 27858
USA
http://www.gunnarswanson.com
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+1 252 258-7006
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