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Hmm .... Terry may be statistically right that most people who call themselves designers are software technicians but i'm not sure he's endorsing the idea that this is a good thing. Of course the broader population of people who design towns the built environment even organizations might not think of themselvess as software dupes. Still there is a real synerhustic relationship netwwn modern design practice and the current technoscientific accoutrements at hand. Actor network theory would even out tool and human agent on a level playing field -----Original Message----- From: Hodge Robin <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> To: Robin, Hodge <[log in to unmask]> Sent: 15/08/2009 4:42:16 PM Subject: Re: Art and Design Schools becoming scientific Colleagues Its very very rarely that I get angry over a comment made on PHD-Design but I'm sorry the following comment really does take the biscuit: 'I suggest that very little designing is done by individuals. That in reality, most designing is computerised and automated and most design practice skills are reduced to choosing between options in software packages.' No, no no, no, no. What you suggest is that the 'democracy' of computing has taken away the thought process i.e. the design process. The software package is only a tool, it is the slave to the master and merely performs a task as much as a pencil ever did. The design process will always be contoled outwith the package - unless we are talking of small backstreet printers - where even there I've seen evidence of strange things called 'layout pads' and 'pantone markers' - whatever do they use them for when InDesign is sitting on their desktops? Robin PR Hodge MA, BA (Hons), PG Dip (Media), FAETC, MIDI Fellow of the Royal Society Programme Director Master of Design and Communication -----Original Message----- From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design on behalf of Terence Love Sent: Fri 14/08/2009 17:00 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Art and Design Schools becoming scientific Dear Martin and David, You asked me to provide some arguments as to why university Design schools in the Art and Design tradition are likely to become scientific? The answer to your question is longer than I expected. I realise some of what I've written some people may disagree strongly. If so, I'd like to know the opposing evidence. I welcome your comments. Terry === One way of looking at why university design schools will become more scientific is to observe that it has already happened but the culture of romantic traditionalism and habits of individualist hero-worship in the field have blinded people from seeing it. I suggest that very little designing is done by individuals. That in reality, most designing is computerised and automated and most design practice skills are reduced to choosing between options in software packages. Already there can be seen two agendas in university design schools: research whose outcomes for the future are as resource to support the creation of automated easy to use design software that produces high quality professional design outputs for individual designers with lower design skills, and education in 'design practice' that comprises formally training designers to use automated design software such as Photoshop. Practice-led design research contributes to the first agenda. Viewing science as 'systematized knowledge as a subject of study'; both of the above agendas of university design schools can be seen as being essentially already 'scientific'. Some points that support the above are: . Over the last three decades, designers have been learning the same small set of simplistic design methods. In this time, however, the 'hidden' use of design methods by designers has increased thousands fold. This is because, rather than teach designers design methods; it has been enormously more successful to embed the products of design research as automated design methods in the software that designers use. . It has become more effective and improved design outputs to place most of the creativity of design activity in the hands of the computer and its artificial intelligence rather than have human designers be creative. . These approaches have been successful. Over the last 20 years, design practices in the Art and Design school traditions have improved about 800% in productivity with massive improvements in the quality of output of designers. This is primarily a result of PhDs in Design and design research in general. You can test the figures easily by reflecting on how long tasks took 20 years ago and how long they take now. Think for example of making a slide show of images that zoom, fade and sweep across the screen. Twenty years ago it would have taken several days and today it takes minutes. Twenty years ago, very few graphic designers or photographers would have been capable of doing it. Now any graphic designer training at secondary school can do it - and to a professional standard. . Most design methods are almost completely automated to the point that the designer has only to select the result from a range of choices. Nowadays, almost all the design methods used by designers are used tacitly and unconsciously and exactly as prescribed (because there is no other possibility) rather than intentionally or by 'dialogue with the method'. Computerized automated 'hidden' design methods now comprise almost 100% of the design methods used by designers. Very little design is done by the designer using design methods themselves. . Part of the problem in seeing design practice and design research in this way is the naivety and selfishness in people's thinking by which they presume the benefits of a PhD should go primarily to the person undertaking it. It is not obvious why this should be seen in this way. Each PhD typically costs society between $500,000 and $1m. In public institutions, a large portion of this is paid out of the public purse. It would be expected that whilst a PhD candidate gets their training to qualify as a doctor, the outcome of the PhD should contribute usefully to a value of at least the cost of the PhD to the public good. Many national governments are legislating that PhDs have to contribute to the national good if they are funded from national budgets. Bryn Tellefsen and I researched this in 2000 and the findings were published in a special edition of IJDST edited by David and Ken in 2002 (Tellefsen & Love, 2002). . It has not yet become part of the public awareness for us as design researchers, PhD candidates and designers to realise that the primary benefit and outcome of design research is as knowledge to support better performing computerised designing machines; rather than skills for individual 'craft' designers (whose work is increasingly computerised). Most design work is being done by the automated computerised systems drawing on the knowledge gained via design research and that the main role of designers is increasingly that of managing automated computerised design processes such as those of Adobe, SolidWorks, AutoCAD etc. Some of the above is discussed in Love(Love, 2006). One way of seeing the current enthusiasm for what we call 'design practice' is a special political code that is intended to exclude most of what happens in design activity in order to reify what some of us enjoy as a pleasurable game, and at the same time to define a closed group of individuals who are the only group 'qualified' to undertake this 'design practice'. By implication, the overall aim is gaining additional access to privilege, status, access to resources and a nice pleasurable game playing job for this exclusive group of individuals. Developing a practice-based/led PhD can be seen as part of this agenda. An additional historical reason to support the conjecture that Design fields in Art and Design are likely to become more scientific is that all the other design fields that I can think of outside Art and Design have gone down this path. Many of those fields such as Engineering design and Typography design were initially strongly aesthetic rather than scientific. The main advantage of the scientific approach seems to be that it produces better quality designed outcomes. Design fields in Art and Design are already a long way down the same path to science. Best wishes Terry Refs Love, T. (2006). A Systems Analysis of the Problem of Professional Practice in Design: "Why Mac Computer Systems Reduce Creativity and Inhibit Quality Improvement of Novel Innovative Design" - Plenary. In E. Corte-Real, K. Friedman & T. Love (Eds.), WonderGround, Designing interdisciplinary discourse, conspiring for Design Leadership, Design Research Society International Conference 2006 Proceedings Book. Lisbon, Portugal: IADE - Instituto Artes Visuais Design Marketing. A pre-print can be found at http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2006/prob_profprac.htm Tellefsen, B., & Love, T. (2002). Doctoral Research in Design: The Future of the Practice-based Doctorate. International Journal of Design Science and Technology, 10(2), 45-59. On 14 Aug 2009, at 12:15 pm, Martin Salisbury wrote: > Dear Terence > > Could you just run me through why it is now the turn of the Art and > Design > Schools to become science schools? Yes, I am curious to know that too! David ......................................................................... David Durling FDRS PhD http://durling.tel .........................................................................