Terry,
One of the joys of most scientific approaches is the precise use of language. I might have agreed with you if you had said that designs are usually created base on previous design but that understanding principles allows work that is, in some sense, more "original." (I won't get into explaining the scare quotes right now.)
Instead, you were overly specific describing both options.
Your #1 describes a particular practice rather than a broad description, disallowing other ways that design can be based on previous work. I have to believe that you gave the description you did because you wanted to be insulting about the option, emphasizing your assumption that everything that is not "scientific" is cheesy and morally defective.
Your #2 specifies scientific theories, leaving out the many other ways that analysis, understanding, and developing functional principles can aid in design.
As such, you have narrowed your claim to the point that calling these the two primary paths is nonsense.
As I said, I might have agreed with you if you had stated the "primary paths" better but I still would have challenged the relevance of your statement to the question of design studies.
Unfortunately, the precise use of language I admire in good science is completely missing from your comments. You seem to confuse stealing/theft with plagiarism. Like too many people, your sloppy verbiage about “copying" of various sorts obscures clear though about both efficacy and ethics.
Your claim that design studies is based on history is inaccurate; the field based on the history of design is, surprisingly enough, called design history. Your characterization of design history as plagiarizing the past or as primarily an aid to plagiarism is as stupid as it is insulting to design historians. Even if the apparent intended claim were accurate, plagiarism would be the wrong description of copying of broadly known objects. (Broad recognition would, of course, be the end product of the sort of design history teaching you allude to.)
Given the rhetorical carelessness of your message, perhaps being snotty about the humanities isn't quite the best approach.
Gunnar
Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
http://www.art.ecu.edu
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Gunnar Swanson Design Office
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> On Jan 19, 2020, at 7:00 AM, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Hi Luke and Alun and all,
>
> Another dimension of this is how design education contributes to new design solutions.
>
> There are two primary paths:
>
> 1. Creating new designs on the basis of ideas from the past via a 'resources' folder/'theft book' /'snitch folder'/'plagiarism box' (or whatever it is called locally) that contains previous designs that were found to be of interest and have potential future use from copying; or,
> 2. Creating new designs on the basis of scientific theories (e.g. theories about useability, etc).
>
> Both methods are used across all design fields. For example, designing a crankshaft can be done scientifically in terms of all sorts of mathematically-based analyses, or it can be done by copying (stealing the design of) a crankshaft from an engine with similar characteristics. Ditto for designing everything from buildings, townships, services, phone apps to craft glassware.
>
> In Design education terms, these two approaches range from on one side 'Design Science' to on the other side 'Design History' (Design History is, in essence, an academically approved version of a 'theft book').
>
> Traditionally, the term 'Design Studies' has strongly implied having design education based around 'Design History', which was its origins, particularly in the Humanities, where historians would like to be as central to design as possible.
>
> We are in a time when prediction, innovation and increased technicality are important in creating new and valuable design outcomes.
>
> Part of the question about the name of design education, is whether one grounds future design education around science that opens up new innovations, or sees design education as primarily education in design activity that plagiarises the past via Design History.
>
> Another dimension of this question of naming design education is about academic resources and bang for the buck.
>
> If you want to quickly train students to produce outputs that look visually professional enough to impress their parents and others seeing student work on the walls and do this in the shortest time and using the minimal educational resources - then from observation the most cost-effective approach is to train students in Design History and train them to copy.
>
> If you want design graduates to become professionally skilled and their designing to have a sound basis in research findings, being able to predict outcomes, optimise designs, and address complex design problems competently - then the education is slower, will use more educational resources across more fields, and will need to go beyond the Humanities, and especially beyond Design History. And outside the Humanities and Arts, the term 'Design Studies' is not so meaningful.
>
> Best wishes,
> Terry
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