A call to design students and graduates
I know that many of you have either been a design student, or are currently enrolled on a design course. Tell me, what would you change about your education? Complete the following statement in a comment and I’ll publish your thoughts in a follow-up post, linking to your website:
If I ran a design course…
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Update: 01 February 2010
Here’s the follow-up: What graphic design schools are lacking.
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During my design school years … a lot of the projects we were presented with were very open ended. Like … design a logo for a zoo or design a book cover.
Now that I’m working professionally … I realize that sorta generic project doesn’t exist. There are always a million factors to consider. And I think the design school I attended lacked that element. I’d have loved to receive a 10 page book of comments, suggestions, history … a real design brief to work from. I think that’s what makes a good designer. The development of that keen ability to decipher irrelevant information down to a few visual gems. When you look through a logo-lounge book …. all you’re viewing is a beauty contest. Save a few recognizable marks, you have no idea whether or not the image you are seeing fit the purpose and was successful to the clients need. Students often start at the end, by trying to create a beautiful image. Teaching students that design is a solution / response to a problem more than an expression of solitary beauty would be a fine starting point.
Also, business. My design school never even started to talk business. Which for most of us, we are a business tool … so at least a fundamental business course would have been very relevant.
Design school teaches you how to talk to other designers … there needs to be an entire course on talking to people who are not designers. Maybe count it as a foreign language credit.
Just my 2 cents. Sounds like someone is about to teach a semester somewhere.
When I was going to school, my teachers had an emphasis on output. They wanted to make us as work-ready as possible. And I applaud that. But very few that came out pushed boundaries on creative thinking. Projects felt like it was just “homework.” If the teacher liked it, well, it was done. No more exploring. It drove me nuts. I had some really good instructors but I also had ones that pushed their own views of what “worked” and what didn’t, without really explaining what that meant.
I’ve been out of school for a few years now and realize so many things I never touched on while in school. My biggest wish was that there was a class strictly on creative problem solving. Like reverting back to childhood to solve problems grown ups would give you. Not just “make me a letterhead and 50 logos.”
As an example, sometimes I challenge my lil’ nieces 6 & 9yrs. old. to come up with pictures at the dinner table with whatever is lying around. Last night we had a paper straw wrapper (basically trash). The 9yr. old tore it into tiny pieces laying it flat she made a small house, then a puppy face, a small castle/ (her lil’ sister surrounded it with a moat, complete with a princess storyline) and finally she made her initials by sticking the pieces of paper against her glass cup using the condensation from it. I didn’t get anything near as awesome when I gave the ad agency I worked for the same problem. Some even called it a waste of time.
My point, it would be great if “creativity” was reinforced and encouraged more in classes. So that problem solving comes naturally in a professional work environment.
Perhaps a class that gives homework from that awesome lil’ book “Caffeine for the Creative Mind.” Or one that uses “Orbiting the Giant Hairball” by Gordon Mackenzie as mandatory reading.
If I ran a design course I would divide the focus of the class in half. Fifty percent of the class shall be directed towards commercial work, while the remainder fifty percent be spent pursuing personal projects. The differing projects would be interspersed, making the rhythm of the class organic and mixed up. My design education has been rooted in the fine arts, yet a large majority of my studies outside of the art studio were devoted to client skills and implementing my point of view into commercial works. Designers should never forget they are artists, employed to bring art form into the mass communication realm that print and web design affords.
I’m currently studying Graphic Design in Monterrey, Mexico. Regardless I just finished my 3rd semester I can see what’s going on with the course and stuff, and as a response to Stephen, I think design shouldn’t have that much of a business approach. I mean, I haven’t had any professional experience yet, but in my school, works and projects have to have what’s called DIB (Design, Innovation & Business) and sometimes it’s kind of frustrating to be thinking with the dollar sign in mind. I don’t know if I’m being clear.
I think more thoughts will come to me in a minute, that would be all for now.
If I ran a design course I would probably have a lot of real world projects for my students. They would be able to offer their newly learned skills in design to up and coming businesses, bands, etc. Something to give them hope and spark their creativity.
If I ran a design course, I’d teach my students about the many different ways that one can earn money as a designer. I’d bring in professionals from different industries to teach them about how different business models operate for creative professional, for example: the differences between going freelance and working on staff; or the different industries within which one can work and what the main differences are.
I’d devote at least 25% of my curriculum to the business of design, and bring in as many active industry professionals as I could to work with the students, and teach them all about how to make lots of money with their great creative skills!
Elliott
If I ran a design course I would teach the tools and elements of good design, not design itself
Also,
How to design for a specific audience or to reach a specific objective, and how to design for different medium (web, print, banner ad, logo…)
After studying the usual books. I would give’em few blogs to read to stay up to date.
And If we are talking about web design then a proper project would be to create their own portfolios/blogs.
I’ve had a pretty awsome design course. What we lacked though was web design teaching. It’s a big part of the demand and we have to be able to provide, know some basics about cms and the programming languages. They avoided it because people were not in design to learn programming skills but I still think it would have been a major plus.
I think I would have liked more on color too. and today I found this amazing post on color that helped me more than anything they ever thaught us about color ( or tried to): How to get a professional look with color.
If I ran a design course…
I would teach the class like it were a design agency, and throw in design principles along the way where they fit into place. It was fun taking blocks and trying to describe action words like, fall, tension, symmetry and all, but there was a large lack of design in business application.
I would teach first on how fully get a proper design brief from a client. I left my first designs classes without a clue, just some quick responses I forced out of my teachers at the end of the semester. I jumped right into some freelance logos with no client direction in mind. The client said, ‘I want a logo’. I said ‘ok’, and came up with 3 complete random logos. Never thought of asking questions like ‘Who is your target audience?’, ‘What is your budget, deadline, and specifications?”. The design brief is half the battle and can really guide your work.
I would then get into client contracts, another area I feel school has given me little knowledge about. I would enlighten them on revisions, getting half pay up front, client approvals, and other legal revisions. I feel that new designers are subject to be taken advantage of because of their lack of experience, and a solid contract can help benefit the designer, who knows they will get pay, as well as the client, who knows now what to expect from the designer.
I would finally get into design in application, pretend I am a new client, they ask me questions and get a design brief, we sit down and I sign a contract, and THEN we start working on sketches, comps, mock-ups. We can THEN talk about texture, value, and color with design. I feel that there is a total lack of the business side of design in all of the design courses I have taken.
At last we will talk about selling the concepts to the client. We will learn that you can’t just make a cool design and call it a logo, teach the students that there has to be reason to their rhyme, and the more they can defend their concepts and effectively deliver their messages to clients the more successful designers they will be.
If I ran a design course, I would place a lot of emphasis on the strength of the concept. I think that sometimes, design students might fall deeply in love with a design because it’s absolutely gorgeous (but it might not always be the most effective solution for that particular project). It’s important to learn the difference between a gorgeous solution and an effective one.
I would prepare my students for the inevitable…the small projects that take time away from the major projects. For example, after assigning a two week project, I would sporadically assign ‘Client Emergencies’ like that ad that needs to be designed, approved and printed by ‘tomorrow’. That’s something that I wasn’t prepared for when I got my first design job. The goal of this is make the student able to multi-task in a designerly way. (Most college students do a fair amount of multi-tasking, in general) Also, another goal would be to make the student aware of time management and to trust their designer intuition.
If I ran a design course, I would try to make it run more like a business. I feel like clients abuse too much designers and there needs to be a class to learn how to deal with them…
If I ran a design course…
I would structure a 101 class in the following order:
- Black and white studies constrained to rectilinear compositions
- Black and white studies with freeform lines and shapes
- Black and white abstract studies based on page layout grids, with freeform elements constrained to areas of a grid.
- Repeat of first 3 studies, but in black, white, and one gray
- Basic color theory (harmonies and contrasts) using color wheel
- Repeat of first 3 studies, but in white plus 3 colors with added freedoms
- One abstract study using 3 colors plus tints and hues, based on a grid, using freeform constrained to grid.
- A research and design project involving the copying of 3 designs in paint, making use of any necessary deletion or changes to the originals in order to limit time spent on each design copy.
Work would be done in marker or pen at first. Color studies would be in acrylic using 5 tubes of color (black, white, 3 primaries).
- Final studies would be a series of six abstract design projects that incorporate as few or as many of the previous style of exercises. Each student would be required to explain and defend each of the six works in a critique sessions, which would count for a large percentage of the final grade.
The goal would be to induce students to work within limitations and find creative solutions with a constrained palette of options on each project. The work itself would form each impressionable student with a strong working understanding of design fundamentals, and all but completely eliminate any focus on style, which would not be taught or even discussed. Balance, movement, tone, grid structure, etc, would all become permanent vocabulary for my 101 students!
I was amazed that my course had so much weight awarded to the research and development stages of a project. It was a personal annoyance, nobody else seemed to care but me.
Part of the problem of my Graphic Design degree was that it spent a lot of time glamourising the subject and not enough time telling us what it was like in the real world.
Maybe more input from employed designers would be a welcome addition to some courses.
I would’ve loved to have a proper workshop, not doing assignments, but actual jobs, under the supervision of the teacher. Apply your knowledge and skills directly.
If I ran a design course, I would start the first year by teaching everyone physical art techniques like silk screen and origami. Then by the second semester I would take the class onto the digital realm and help them understand the Adobe system ensuring they will be set for the second year.
Come the second year I would give them live projects as well as creativity inspiring briefs of my own; to help them get confident and charged. Making them ready and prepared for the last year.
This year would be difficult and busy. I would constantly send short briefs at my students and keep them on their toes. I’d give them contacts with the real world of design; and once they left I always keep in contact in case they need anything more.
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Feel free to change any grammar :)
I’m a second year student, and I think my tutors are great. Though I would prefer it if we got taught a little more on the physical creation and I know the rest of my class would appreciate more digital knowledge.
If I ran a design course I would probably include a lot of excercises that teach the students -”Kill your darlings!” This was the sentence one teacher always repeated in a design course in Sweden I had, and… I find it really important, because sometimes we start thinking that we HAVE THE SOLUTION, and it’s definitely NOT. Killing your first ideas is always a good solution, I think, because almost never the right answer is the first one that comes to you.
Merry Christmas everyone!
If I ran a design course, I would teach students a lot more about running a business. My course was outstanding at teaching us design, but lacked in teaching us how to run our own business. Ive learnt and I am still learning that myself. I studied at Grenadi School of Design, Melbourne. Invoicing, outsourcing, disputes, deadlines, collaborations, subs, employees ahhhh…
If I ran a design course…
I would make sure that all student understand the importance of print-ready files. How to design within client budget constraints and would make sure they all understand how things are printed and the various different finishing techniques.
I was fortunate in that after graduating my first job was working for a print company, so I have a fairly huge knowledge base about working practices when it comes to printing things. This was an area that was barely touched upon in my courses, both BA and MA. A lot of people left the course not knowing how CMYK made a full colour. Ridiculous.
I think more emphasis should be on finishing than currently is at the moment. Designing a wacky ‘blue sky’ design is great, having the creative abailty to do that is wonderful, but even more importantly is being able to turn that into something real. The majority of graduate designers don’t end up working for companies where budget is not so much of a factor, where anything goes.
In the real-world these things really count.
If I ran a design course I would keep it focused.
I’m a graduate of Interactive Multimedia Design (IMD) at University of Ulster. I highly recommend the course, I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I didn’t really get much out of it until final/4th year when I was taught about web standards, css, branding, grids etc.
IMD covers all multimedia including video, audio, flash, animation, 3D, gaming, graphic design etc. but it is also seen as a web design course, as most final year projects tend to be web sites/applications and most graduates go on to be web designers.
It would be good to see a focused course covering all aspects of web design in more detail from yr1 including standards, css, type, usability, social media, IA, branding etc. with the aim of producing an awesome crop of web designers
I teach a graphic design class now that covers the basics like typography, color usage, basic design elements, structure, eye flow and design hierarchy. All designs in class are done with pencil and paper to focus on design, not interacting with a computer.
If I could teach an entire design course, I would assign projects that involve students creating designs that solve real problems for real businesses. I am so sick of all the Best Logos Of The Web posts that are full of fake, make up businesses and words that would never be used in real life. If you can work with the challenges of a real client with real opinions and you can still come up with a top quality design, that’s what it is all about.
I would also have a strong emphasis on typography. Typography is the line between great and mediocre and it just isn’t taught anymore.
I never attended design school, I’m not currently on a design course either, however one of the things I have discovered from speaking to designers in Northern Ireland is that even if you are the best designer in the Country, even the World, if you don’t know how to interact with clients or even close a sale, your talents are going to be restricted, no clients = no designing to be done.
So the one Thing I would recommend is providing some sales / customer interaction skills, otherwise the design schools are merely churning out talented individuals who will end up grant hopping.
If i ran a design course I’d make very clear up front that design is not art. So many designers end up as designers even though they always wanted to be artists. As such, they always hate the business side and ‘selling out’ and try push clients to do things to fulfil their own goals. I think design & art should be separate, and that should be fundamental in any course.
You’re never going to solve the issue of ‘creative thinking’ vs ‘production training’ entirely so best just to make a decision and focus on it.
If I was running a course, I would at least one year after the masters I just completed at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. There, everything was workshop based and you worked on projects between 2-4 weeks in teams. It was quite like a studio environment and there was a very small continuing faculty. Most of the courses were taught by invited faculty who visited for 2-3 weeks and gav a workshop on a particular subject. This mean they were very in-touch with the industry and the college could get a very high calibre of faculty which we really appreciated. Also, we had to present everything to our peers which was fundamental to learning how to communicate design, and to get critiques in public. I don’t think this approach would work for 4 years of a course, but it’s a great way of doing things for a masters or final year.
We really need some decent design courses in Ireland. Especially in web design, which is shockingly poor.
I enjoyed my design curriculum and learned a lot from it. If I had to change anything, I would add a class focusing strictly on ‘Branding’ a product and a class focusing on starting a product/graphic/etc design firm from scratch. Design is one of the hardest professions to find a job due to different interest. I believe if designers had more knowledge out of school on how to start a small firm and turn it into something greater one day, we wouldn’t have so many frustrated creative people in the world.
I am currently a design student at Western Connecticut State University and about half way through the graphic design curriculum. I have yet to learn anything about the programs used to design in the real world.
For my self this isn’t really a problem because I have worked in the design field for over 2 years now and have taken it upon my self to learn the computer skills needed to be a tech savvy designer. My concerns are for those that don’t have a direction or mentor to turn to to get a head start.
I feel if I were to structure an entire curriculum for design students I would focus less on courses like 3 dimensional design, Advanced figure drawing, Painting, Etching, etc… and add course not in design but in learning the current design programs used in the industry during the first 2 years.
Having classes with less experienced students I cant count the times I’ve heard someone say the where using photoshop to design vector or full page layouts! that is absolutely ridiculous and the lack of guidance is allowing people to form bad habits and bad ethics.
We know we need to learn how to design with our eyes before we design with the computers but with the intricacy if technology and the ever changing industry it feels like they are setting us up for failure right out of the gate.
If I ran a design course… the curriculum would include an introduction to event-driven object-oriented programming using the Processing language (see http://processing.org).
Since so many designers these days are called-upon to do web design, and so many websites require some programming (with Javascript, PHP, Actionscript, etc.) a minimum of practical exposure and experience to de-mystify (and defuse) the basics can go a long way.
I agree with Stephen Lee Ogden. So many of the assigned projects were too open-ended, creating a scenario in which school projects in no way resembled design projects in the real world. Ideally, at least one design class would have paired each student up with a business seeking a new visual identity and taught the students how to ask intelligent questions that would prompt the business to begin revealing their vision for the new look.
Time is money, and the faster a designer can effectively represent a client’s vision, the better. That doesn’t happen without the tools to create a good questioning framework. I learned the hard way that my mind-reading skills were sorely lacking.
Finally, I wish school had prepared me for the fact that most clients have a very poor sense of what makes good design. Often, my clients pick my worst design over the truly good ones. This has taught me to be a lot more careful in choosing what to present. I no longer just throw everything out there to see what will stick. I’m always disappointed and a little embarrassed in that situation.
If I ran a design course, I would make sure my students were given the opportunity to learn different aspects of being a great designer, while keeping the material practical. I haven’t yet been in a design course, but I am starting my BFA in graphic design next week.
I have been given the incredible opportunity of having a partner who is an incredible graphic designer, and for the past few years, he has taught me everything he knows about design. He is the reason I have such a passion and drive to succeed in this business. I know that the competition is fierce in this field, but if you keep true to your own set up values and design principles, your work will astound the masses. I am now a freelance graphic designer specializing in Web and logo design, and I cannot wait to learn all I can in my graphic design courses next semester.
That said, I’d like to revert to my original statement, that a graphic design course should encompass everything you can possible know, while keeping things practical.
One more key component to the success of a design course, which many overlook, is communication. You may have the greatest design, with the most beautiful colors, and typography to match, but if you fail at communicating properly with your client, you may lose that client.
Just my thoughts, though.
Have a great holiday everyone! ;-)
I would argue against the idea that conceptual communicators like designers need to learn code of any kind. There are career tracks for code-minded people who are way better at css, java, whatever than the designer / coders that I know. We need to teach designers the ability to communicate ideas with these people … not become them. All that is needed is a basic understanding of web standards and interactive design. That’s just my opinion (perhaps the road less traveled). I would love to see a collaboration with the IT department of a university to produce an interactive project.
Which begs to question … is it better to communicate an idea to its completion (creating and collaboration) … or do it all yourself (design, write, photo, code, whatever)? One is scalable within a company structure (art director) the other is requires a lot more work, time & talent.
Some excellent comments here, folks. Great. I know there are quite a few tutors / teachers who direct their students to my blog, so this post, and the follow-up, is a small way to help them back. Thanks very much for sharing your experiences, everyone.
I agree with the people who said that design classes should be more grounded in reality. Creativity is important, but I have two reasons for being in school: To develop a kickass portfolio and to obtain the skills I will need after I graduate. I’m still in my first year of classes, so maybe this changes, but so far my classes have been way too broad and too easy. They don’t really teach you how to think outside of the box or use your resources wisely.
I would also really love a class that dealt knowing how to be diplomatic with people who don’t know anything about design but think they do.
These comments are incredibly interesting to me, due in part to my graduating from college this upcoming semester.
One of the most beneficial aspects of school, was that it was not grounded in the “real world”. This was important for me because I was heading towards higher learning in the design field. Granted, what it boils down to is what your goals are. I never had aspirations to be client focused 100% of the time, therefore the projects that happened to be grounded in the real world were not as interesting to me. I have the rest of my life to apply my education to clients.
Another interesting note in my professional experiences, is that clients enjoy my personal projects far more than my client work. Creating a killer portfolio in your undergraduate is important, but more often than not they become pure commercial projects (based on what I have seen from portfolio websites all over the place). It’s arguable, but from my conversations with educators and designers alike, it seems that you are filling a cookie cutter when you do not explore the art and creativity side that design affords.
I also find it intriguing that some are insistent on separating art from design. Once again, this falls under the premise of knowing your goals. For me, design is based in the fine arts world. They are completely inseparable. What is the goal of becoming a painter but to sell your paintings? It’s all commercial work, one is just more prestigious. Some of the best Masters programs in the United States are in harmonious agreement that design must be included in the fine arts category. Creative visual thinkers are all the same, after all, their medium is just different.
If I ran a design course I’d spend most of the class time teaching basic design principles and working with pencil and paper first.
I’m going to a community college in CA for an A.A in graphic design. I couldn’t afford to go to a University or an art school, so I had to make do with the community college. And thus far it’s been less than satisfactory.
The design classes are mostly just Photoshop for Idiots. My mid term in my Graphic Design 1 class was to memorize photoshop shortcuts. We never covered color, typography, or just basic design.
Critiques were anything but. There was so much blind encouragement, terrible design was often overlooked. How are we supposed to learn to improve when the areas where we lack are never brought to light?
I just hope my future classes don’t repeat this crap.
If I ran a design course first-year students would be put through a rigorous programme of Calculus, Economics, History, Composition, and Public Speaking. The goal would be to produce first a thinker, a professional, a businessperson, and an educated individual. Only then will traditional design “training” begin. And yes, a lot of people would drop out.
Also, I’d do everything I can to involve industry professionals from day one. Students would have exposure to the workplace without this vail of secrecy and would have an opportunity to work a co-op programme or some other kind of work placement, even it means going part-time for a year or otherwise rearranging their studies. The phrase “in the real world” would be banned — this school would be very much a part of the professional world.
I did architecture degrees and some of my contempories did interior design or graphic design degrees. So why is archiecture not just called ‘building design’ which leads to the question ‘what the difference between design and architecture?’.Answers on a postcard please?
If I ran a design course…
The course should be made up of three streams:
Creative – where the briefs are open and encourage conceptual thought provoking solutions.
Real Life – come here to learn your indesign/Ps/illustrator, the pre-press, artwork setup, corrections, whats involved when putting a brochure together.
PLACEMENTS: this should be mandatory. Every Year!
If I ran a design course…
I would include more information on business related topics that we may encounter on a daily basis such as design briefs, creative briefs, client contracts, revision & payment policies, etc. In addition, maybe a few “People’s Workshops” where students would role play both the designer side and the client side and have student input on how to rectify/negotiate the current scenario. More coverage on theory and design principles, good design vs. bad design, etc.
I had a sign and graphic business before I returned to college for graphic and web design and I was learning on the fly which was long and arduous. My intention after school was to return and reopen my business which I have recently done but I was hoping that our curriculum would provide more guest speakers from leading firms or designers that would lecture on different topics such as the trials and tribulations that we may encounter out in the business world after school. Q&A sessions following said lectures would have been nice as well.
One last thing that I can think of is some sort of discussion or lecture on “pricing” and also maybe provide more resources such as books, web sites, organizations such as AIGA and GAG, etc. One nice thing our school offers is a blog where current students and graduates can post questions or recommendations to the other members and receive feedback or help. I also agree with Emily about the need to be “diplomatic” with non-designers!
If I ran a design course…
I would give my class an assignment that would cover an entire product design’s worth of work, taking them from generating ideas to making manufacturing spesifications and drawings. l wouId ask the class to do a huge product design project – something bound in reality, preferably in cooperation with a real company. would then ask my students to choose the part of the process they wanted to work with the most, and thereby also choose what they wanted to hand in at the end of the semester. They would have to choose because no one student would be able to deliver all the client asked for alone.
The point of presenting the assignment in that way, and dividing it, would be (at least) two-folded. The class would be introduced to the mere fact of the complexity of a real-life (product/service) design project – the stages you go through, the many factors to take into consideration, the huge apparatus it takes to make an idea go from just that to a complete product ready to put on the market.
The stages and parts of the project could be divided up like this:
1) research on user needs
2) market research
3) conceptualization
4) product design
5) detailed manufacturing modelling
6) marketing plan
7) branding and identity
8) project managment
Since some of these stages and parts are dependent on others, timing would be a challenge. It could be solved by having students waiting for other stages to be ready assist in the earlier stages, and students already done with their own assist in later stages.
That would mean having all students be part of user needs research (big bonus, user centered design would be my above all focus in any course), with the ones choosing it as their delivery having to organize and take responsibility for it. Market research could be done in parallel. then conceptualization, with everyone pitching in with ideas. then product design and finishing for manufacturing. Alongside these, branding and marketing plan. Project management would go from start to finish, of course.
In addition to learn how much it takes to get a product out there and make it valuable, my students would hopefully reflect on the importance of each and every stage, and most of all: the communication needed during a project and within the complex organization they would effectively be.
But most of all, my reason for asking everyone to choose one of the parts, would be to have them reflect on what working with design really meant for them. What is it that I really want to do when I finish design school? Working with design means touching in on so many different fields, and as a designer not only will you be stronger for understanding the complete picture your product fits into, but you’ll probably also want to have a say in many of these fields. And you can. If you want to.
Granted, my course would not be a stand-alone design course, but well within a broad design degree, where all the basics would be covered, sooner or later.
Must confess, haven’t thought this thoroughly through. It’s just an idea. But it would be fun to see it happen one day…
If I ran a design course I would welcome new topics students would be interested in learning for the real world, and never underestimate them.
If I ran a design course, I would take the time to learn the art of teaching first and realize that just because I have designed a few annual reports in the field does not qualify me as a good teacher. Many of my professors have not been able to justify their grades, didn’t know what a scoring guide/rubric was, and loved to humiliate students during the critique portion of the class. Phenomenal teachers give constructive criticism, but they also know that they should sandwich it in between some positive feedback. Also, they know that it is absurd to grade students on concepts that they have not even been introduced to. I had a professor deduct points off of assignments for students taking an introductory freshman design course due to them not knowing certain things about design already. If the students already know the information, then why would they be in the class?
If I ran a design course, I would not let my personal insecurities get in the way of praising my students. I have had more than my share of professors that are only teaching because they cannot find any design jobs. That is fine. I am a college professor myself and a freelancer However, some of those professors get off on beating students down and nitpicking their works after they have received praise by the other students or when their works have proven to be a little bit better than the professors. I have come across some talented people in my classes that have left courses doubting their talents after an insecure professor knocked them down a few times. That is not right. I don’t know what the hiring practices are at some of these universities, but HR really needs to kick it up a notch and look for teachers that at least have some sort of educational background so that they know these basic principles.
I’ve just finished my first semester of study in digital media design after 10 years of working as a translator and I love it. My profs have been instrumental in helping me realize that design does not equal software and that while coming up with new ideas is good, honoring established principles is essential.
If I ran a design course I would encourage students to concurrently study Web programming. I am taking elective courses on hand coding XHTML, PHP, Java, etc, and it really is giving me an advantage over my classmates who are dependent upon software for their Web development.
Thanks very much for the always inspiring posts, David.
If I ran a design course, first and foremost I would follow the examples set by my two advisers Constance and Susie. Both encourage students and critique them without putting them down and suggesting changes that still let the student feel like it is their work.
I would have them learning about the history of graphic design and the various styles of art (Art Nouveau, Deco, Modernism, etc.) in order to expose them to people and styles to help them find what they like and develop their own style. Also it always helps to see where your art came from. In my psychology studies one of my favorite courses was called History & Systems of Psychology and the professor teaching it took us all the way back to Ancient Greece and we followed the course of Psychology as it fell out of Philosophy into the realm of hardcore science.
My course would also cover more than just a semester of theory instead of one or two classes and then give chunks here and there in other courses. I definitely would want students knowing why something is done before they learn how to do it in a software application. I would diverge with my school in teaching design using Photoshop/Illustrator. I have taken the Intro to Design course in my school in both formats (took studio based one in 1997 and a Photoshop one in 2007) and definitely like the studio one better simply because it was more hands-on and you did not have Photoshop’s tools to act as a crutch.
The capstone would be very similar to my branding class where students would create a product/company of their own choosing and then take it from nothing to launch writing design and marketing briefs and based on those design several key things that this company would need such as an identity package, advertising, catalogs, packaging, etc. with the instructor acting like an art director in a design firm supervising.
Outside of design I would require lots of writing courses, communications courses (public speaking, organizational communication, and interpersonal communication for sure), and have them take courses in experimental psychology to expose them to research methodology and looking in research journals to help solve design problems.
@Maria — you’re absolutely right that prepress methods should be taught. Print still matters and knowing how to build a file properly is a skill many designers and agencies are unaware of. The best looking website would be useless if it was built with lousy code — the same goes for print production. I’ve met Art Directors that didn’t know what “CMYK” meant. They should also be given projects where the teacher plays the role of a difficult client — someone without imagination and the ability to articulate what they want. It can be a huge challenge to isolate the core message of a design project and knowing how to handle those clients and keep them happy can be even harder. Having some experience in that area would’ve helped me out a lot. :)
If I ran a design course… I’d make sure, first and foremost, I knew how to teach, as Tracy also pointed out.
As in any discipline, it’s not just enough to know how to do it (and I don’t care if you’re at the top), but to know how to teach it. Most of the best coaches around the globe didn’t make it to the top in their own disciplines, but they sure know how to push you there, not only by praising you (sorry Tracy), but also by taking you out of your comfort zone (and this includes being a tough prick).
I overheard a few of my teachers’ conversations (yah… I’m the black sheep) and the reason they teach is mostly free time, extra money, not enough money, that was the job they were offered… I mean… Come the f**king on!
Then, probably I would empasize that graphic design is all about problem solving. IDEAS rule and strategic planning is the way to get them to work.
If I ran a design course I would be bound by unbending bureaucracy more focused on the bottom line than the actual student, who year on year are forced to limit themselves due to ever increasing budget cutbacks and broken promises, and thanks to that faceless two-faced bureaucracy things a graphic design student need are taken away and not replaced due to ‘THE RECESSION’.
If I ran a design course….
(agreeing with a couple comments) I would run the class as if it were a design firm/small studio. The teacher (myself) would be the creative director, and all of the students would each be a designer (obviously). If a student’s emphasis was more towards the marketing side of design, they could do more of the marketing side of the “studio.”
I always felt that my design classes, while informative and very helpful, overall they never touched on the “real world” of the design community and life. How to survive at a design firm (whether small or big) was never spoken of.
After graduating I found that a huge amount of design openings required “3-5 years design firm experience” or something along those lines. If design students graduated with the real world knowledge of the business of design, they would technically have 4 (or 6) years of design experience, making them perfect for any job.
My class had such drama with the bean counters and campus administration in our final year. This was the story at the end of our second year.
January, design department is given a budget of $500,000
Febuary, design department works out staff wages for a year and spends the rest of the money on supplies/equipment.
September, the powers that be decide the budget isn’t $500,000 any more, its only $450,000. since the money is already spent the “solution” is to cut the coarse short my 5 weeks.
So that last month we were meant to spend creating a professional portfolio with our teachers guidance. *gone*.
Go the learning experience. Our 3rd year was riddled with similar ineptitude also. very frustrating.
If I ran a design course, would hire David Airey to give me advice on what to teach students. The course would have to be an approximation to reality with 100% real work. These Specifications are to be in the development process from conception of the idea to product implementation. All this considering the courses learned so far.
Today focuses more on personal development portfolio. This is not bad but many students have to find courses to learn about advertising design techniques when they work because they can not apply what they learned in college to real work.
Business practices in the design field would be high on the list. I’m in my third year and I haven’t gotten in education in that aspect of design. Presentation skills should also be stressed because that is how you gain employment. I think these type of skills are being focused on more and more, but I’d like to see it be incorporated into the classes better.
I don’t think I have too much to say that hasn’t already been mentioned, but when I was in school internships were not necessarily required, though I found several, which is where I think my design education really began…
I would suggest design schools obviously teach what’s needed to create great design, communication skills, etc. However, I’d like to see designs schools help students garner freelance work on their own as a student project (yet supervised by an instructor–more as a mentor-like relationship) as well as require an internship in an agency setting. The idea would be to get students exposed to various working conditions within the design industry.
I would definitely focus on the business side of being a designer as well…to be honest, I think the design part of learning to be a designer is the easy part, it’s understanding how your design fits into the marketing and communication goals of a business and how to adapt throughout the process that is the hard part–and often less taught part. I do understand that experience is not the easiest thing to teach.
If I ran a design class
It would encourage multi-discipline skill-sets (Paul Rand, Javier Mariscal anyone who graduated from the Bauhaus… all multi-disciplinary)
It would involve a focus upon collaborative work
It would involve a one on one tutoring session once a week
It would involve much encouragement
I believe business and design communication courses are crucial to surviving in the real world of design. We as designers must understand how our business works and to clearly communicate our ideas to non-designers and clients to succeed.
Also, I did three separate internships while in school, which probably taught me more than my design courses combined. I think having two semesters of internship time or internship type classes with real clients would thoroughly prepare students for life after school.
After our last final a couple weeks ago some of my fellow students all felt like, “wow, we got a portfolio website up for us but how would you do it for a client? Do we buy the domain or what?” In the print area, we at least had a client project. Also felt like most of our work was not individualzied enough, we all had the same self-portait, the same poster, etc.
I am a senior graphic design and interactive media dual major at Northeastern University. I firmly believe that our program does not nearly enough focus on two key aspects of design: process, and craft.
Oftentimes students will simply design a single iteration, turn it into their client, and will wash their hands of this. Since I was lucky enough to attend an art program before my secondary education, I was instead taught to sketch first and sketch often, then translating that into black and white, and then into a fully fledged design. This is something that is key to developing any designers work, and will make it stronger, but without this I feel that many students are left behind.
Perhaps a lack of craft is partially the fault of the student, but in many cases, as a teachers assistant I find myself often showing students how to properly utilize an exacto blade, or even how to score something. These basic skills are easily enough taught, and I can’t believe that some of my professors are overlooking them, because they’re fundamental in the final presentation of your product.
Easy.
Pre Press.
@ Raul Soria,
Your example of creativity reminds me of some of Seth Godin’s (excellent) thoughts on excellence, creativity, and the workplace. (Seth thinks he is writing about marketing and communicating.)
Grade school children don’t have much invested in making mistakes. They regularly get instructions that don’t make sense to them; success is often arbitrary, too, so their own (ungraded) sense of reasonable seems just as worthy as any other. They can be creative at play because there is no penalty for deciding “this didn’t work; I will do it different, try again, or do something else”.
That isn’t so at most (non-creative) workplaces. You cannot maximize accurate estimates of budget for fixed amounts of time and effort to complete a project, and still permit the false starts and “work toward inspiration” events common to creativity.
Then there is the large organization intent on remaining in business, vs. the small shop or individual yet unbound by tradition and layers of management. In almost all endeavors, it is the individual and small group efforts that make creative breakthroughs, the large organizations that make mass production efficient.
Hint: Don’t tell your kids or your boss that your kids are enriching your work. Your boss won’t appreciate that creative streak you are tapping between you and your children, and won’t appreciate not being able to budget or manage that resource. And your kids deserve the freedom to fail as they play out their fantasies.
Blessed be!
I’m currently in the second year of my Graphic Design degree. What I find really frustrating about my course, and this seems to be the case with many other design students I talk to on other courses, is that they don’t prepare us for Industry. We are basically taught no industry standards, we’ve never even been taught how to format work for print.
I think that preparing students for the working world should be a priority. It seems that 10-20 years ago design students were taught more essential skills than we are today, and they didn’t have to pay tuition fees! So we are paying more money for less teaching.
If I ran a design course…
I would want them to seek out opportunities — within and outside — of the design industry. Master designers are fascinating in their approach to work and business in general, but so are programmers, photographers, engineers, woodworkers, sculptors, ect.
My favorite thing about being a designer, the thing that pulled me into this field to begin with, is the ability to see how so much other stuff works behind the scenes. I love talking to clients with companies who do things I hadn’t realized existed.
Successful designers, I have noticed, love to learn. Being at least a little weird doesn’t seem to hurt either.
This is for my husband. Becoz he’s the one who designs, but shared this dream with me.
If he ran a design course, it would be for kids from 7-18. It would be completely free and all they had to bring were their own tables and chairs. :D
I think more help in getting work for grads would be useful.
perhaps some start up work experinece, school could help organise. im doing a 2 year course at college and i just dont find im taught enough about the programs. most of its self taught. not sure if alot of schools are like that.
so ild say more program knowledge and starter eperinece after grad or within the last 6 months.
If I ran a design course I would include a lot more on client interaction or the business side of the design industry otherwise. For every design course I’ve taken, we learn the in’s and out’s of the software perfectly, along with the review and application of design principles.
However, there have only been a few courses where the outline simulated a real-world design we might have to do for a client, or the handling of any other sort of client alteration, suggestion, or complaint. Of the few that had done that, I learned the most real world experience. And of course, it took nothing away from the fundamental design portion of the class either; just gave me that much more experience.
I’m a junior going into my second semester at Ringling College of Art and Design. I’ve started to see a trend arise among projects at school. Most all of my projects seem to have a secondary motive of assisting us down the line in some kind of real world design i.e. researching and designing a personal icon to help assist in icon and logo design in the real world. However most teachers never really explain the deeper meaning of some of these projects. I however think that should be directly out on the table first, so students understand why they are designing an icon of their favorite toy or object.
I interned for a very reputable Branding agency in Tampa, FL this past summer and learned so much more about the real design business and how things are designed in three months than I did at two years of college. However this last semester has been much more eye opening for me and how I come at projects.
If teaching a course I would give students projects similar to what I’ve been getting, but I would emphasize research, creative thinking methods, group discussions, alternative methods of inspiration, and deeper thinking into every problem instead of just having the students design a book about a place they visit for example. I would make the students research their place of choice, talk to people from that place, photograph the location, derive common themes of their place, use word maps to find deeper than surface ideas for much more well thought out designs for the given problem.
I hope this helps!
I’ve met people who say that their degree course was disappointing. Most of these people were doing my training course at Shillington College in Manchester. I personally loved every minute of it and those in the group who had done graphic design degrees said they learnt more in the first week than the entire time at university. Its intense (3 months) learning was structured like a studio would operate…… so tight deadlines i.e. half a day to 2 days max per brief starting off in black and white with press ads etc just using In Design. Then gradually adding colour and complexity to projects incorporating Illustrator and Psd. The tutors would also behave like clients with the briefs so you would have to ask the right questions in order to get the information needed. It was expensive but a really great experience. Its nice to know there are other options out there than the traditional degree route.
Someone upthread mentioned “Caffeine for the Creative Mind.” I was a classmate of Stefan Mumaw’s and we both studied under Denise Weyhrich, who was featured in the book. She emphasized creativity thoroughly, so much so that to this day I still ask myself, “How else can we solve this?” That’s an excellent foundation in problem solving!
Still, like most people I found that college had little to do with the real working world. We were learning production techniques that were passe even in the moment, which left me learning the nuts and bolts on the job. Currently I’ve been looking to beef up my web skills and find that all the local schools are still offering Dreamweaver classes and teaching table construction. Given that my temp agency would not even let me test for web jobs unless I was doing css-based layout exclusively, that’s a lot of today’s students that are going to be completely unprepared once they pass graduation day.
I did have an instructor who made us run our projects through an output bureau before we turned them in. It was expensive, even with the student discount, but it only took one midnight phone call (“Hi. Your type defaulted to Courier. You said you had to turn in tomorrow morning… what do you want to do?”) to make me pay attention to ALL the details. That was invaluable experience!
So my two cents on design education? Make it real, and keep it current… maybe bleeding edge is not necessary, but somewhere even close to the edge would be helpful for dealing with realities on the job.
Our teachers were so out of date it wasn’t even funny. They would show us a portfolio from 10 years ago that reeked of the ’90s. We mounted everything on black matte board too. I can understand learning to do it, but for 4 years straight on every project?
In my 7 years of experience I have not once mounted anything for a client, nor have I seen anyone mount anything, other than while watching Mad Men.
If I were to mention some of the 3 most popular design blogs (here, Jacob Cass, and Fabio Sasso) they would have no clue who they are. They are stuck in the past.
I think if they would focus on things happening NOW, like that very week or day, rather than the mundane technical aspects from their past, we would have all been much better off.
I went to a state university in Louisiana that offered an art major with a concentration in design.
Like many of the comments here it was out of date… but that wasn’t the worst problem. I saw a lot of students who had no real interest, desire or love of design. There was little design culture. There was little encouragement to stay fresh in the field.
The instructors didn’t stay up with things, didn’t read design blogs, didn’t really understand the web or anything much happening in the last decade and so they couldn’t encourage their students to have the kind of interest… or obsession with design that 2 or 3 of us had from the start. A handful of us excelled and got hired right out of school…
I think to be a designer you have to be passionate… you have to love this field and stay up to date with it, in the past that meant magazines, today it means following blogs and online design resources. None of this was encouraged in school. The designers who graduate and didn’t get jobs in the design field are never going to catch back up. It’s such a waste.
I also think another problem was that the academic atmosphere has a real problem showing the real-world of design.
On most projects students had free reign, they were given an assignment to design packaging for instance and they were told to first make up a company and product and create an identity for it.
Hello? You tell the students to make up their own company? So what does everyone do? They stay in their comfort zone, pick a company name that matches what they already have in mind for a logo, something “cool.” They follow their personal tastes to the point of even changing the company’s name and/or product halfway through the project!
With just a little more effort “clients” could have been assigned to each student, or students could have come up with a client, written up a brief and then thrown it in a box and swapped with other students so they ended up with and had to follow some guidelines from a client. Like the real world. Who gets to change the name of their client because they want to create a logo in a grunge style this week?
Sorry, could not read all the responses so, this may have been mentioned but, “course” I think, in Britain, it is not the same meaning as course in the U.S.
I think you mean “taking design classes” and I presume, graphic design or visual communication. A course in the U.S. is a single class. In skiming some responses above, I see that, mainly young people, did not know this and responded with specific things like, why mount on boards, etc.
So, here is my answer – for a program: If I could change one thing about a graphic design program it would be to make it more like architecture programs. Not copy those programs but, the way they are not part of the Art and Art History Department. Architecture and any design programs should be in the same school or college. But often, graphic design is taught at schools with no architecture program. So, it is part of a fine art faculty and suffers because of it.
Being the disrespected low class stepchild of fine art programs at most universities has really held back design education in the U.S. and has been an unforgivable tragedy to our design students. A good number of those students start off in art and then realize, design is great – despite our fine art professors telling us design is a low end for profit and no artistic field. By the time this happens, they have wasted 2-3 years and need to start over in a design program. Either that or, complete the degree and then go to grad school for design in an extended “make up” MFA program.
Many of the worst offenders are programs which teach design but shunt fine art faculty over to teach design classes. People searching for undergrad programs in graphic design should be sure the entire design area faculty have MFA’s in graphic design (and maybe some work experience) and not come from a fine art MFA program and took up teaching design while teaching fine art.
But even in the ideal situation, the most common; an art department at a state university with truly qualified design faculty, with the highest number of enrolled students versus any other area (photo, ceramics, art history, et al.) – could have the worst teaching spaces, the most crowded classes, the most over worked faculty with many more students to advise, and colleagues who, really don’t care about design and wish it would go away (except, please leave your design students who are, usually, the best students in our fine art classes and who fill out of fine art classes which, otherwise, would not exist.)
Design needs to be, at least, its own department. Sure, the Art and Design departments can share classes. Design students can and should continue to take art classes and art students should take the fundamental design courses. But budgets, hiring, management, promotion, pedagogy, and our futures should not be linked by a meaningless oddity of history.
Sorry for the late reply, but I wanted to add something. If I ran a design course, I would dedicate an entire subject to how to interact with clients. During my univerisity course I would only speak with my teachers, which is obviously very different than talking to a real client. You need to learn how to get good information out of a client, how to get them to understand design concepts, to talk them out of bad ideas without insulting them, and how to avoid the dreaded horror stories you see online like a client getting his mother involved for feedback.
Since I was really quite shy during my uni years, this would have been invaluable to me, because when I got my first job I was thrust into talking to clients and I had no idea what to do. I made some flubs and mistakes that could have been avoided if only I had some framework to follow. A teacher needs to make it very clear on how students will be expected to interact and then work with them so they can be confident sellers of their ideas. (Or even tell students that are too shy that maybe this isn’t the field they should be trying for.)
David,
I am currently a design student at Portland State Univ in Portland, Oregon USA and what I am happy that is being taught at least to some degree is PRINT! I wish the course was more focused on how printing works etc from the time the design is approved from the client to the time it is delivered as a printed piece. Students in GD do not seem to grasp the knowledge of what is reality in the printing world (grant it a lot of things are now reality with new tech but still managing the budget of a project + fantasy don’t mix well.)
I would love to see more print shops being visited, mom and pop, large scale, all types from full four color offset to web to flexo to letterpress, designers need to know how things work so that as designers they can design for how it will be processed.
Just my thoughts! I bought your book a week ago from Borders online and am waiting for it to return! It suck’s that it cost more at Borders then Barnes and Nobel but I got a gift card to Borders so I had to use it. Keep up the good work, I love to see your work, and thoughts on many things. Maybe you can skype with our students at PSU some time we do a share and tell with designers who either come to the school and talk or skype in and talk to the students.
– Cameron
I had a design minor, but my experience seems to reflect everyone else’s.
Every design class I’ve ever been in has lacked a sense of purpose. It’s as if they were all traditional art classes. Every project was presented in a vacuum with a heavy emphasis on ambiguity and artistic vision rather than rationality or a basis in reality. Like “design a poster for an art exhibition.”
I feel that every design project should require a strong rationale paper following the actual final project. If your rationale is weak, then your design is weak.
I also think business classes should be a requirement because design serves business. Without an idea of how businesses operate, we designers are missing a huge part of what we are designing for.
We aren’t creating commissioned art pieces, we are creating design solutions.
I agree with Stephen, But this may be because I got into graphic design to cater to merchandising and the commercial world, I find a lot of people are the complete opposite – Artists first, designers second. I believe you can be a creative designer without a background in fine art.
I love my tutors at school, they are incredibly talented and wonderful people – however our course totally lacks any technical tuition! youtube is a huge help here.
So it’s a lot of teaching yourself but can get incredibly frustrating when you have this awesome design idea in your mind but you can’t poop it out.
If i ran a design course I would comprise business and technical tuition as well as the consistent need for innovation.
Last semester I completed this elective which was like an internship in a design studio except that all designers were students and the creative director was our actual tutor. So we had real clients, but our tutor made sure we did industry-standard work. I learnt so much more in the 7 weeks spent over there than in a year and a half at uni doing projects without clear directions.
I think that a subject based on the concept of apprenticeship has to be made compulsory in design course because it gives invaluable experience to the students.
Oh wow … what wouldn’t I change.
Let me preface this by saying I’m not a designer. I’m a techie who loves and recognises good design when I see it and then realises just how poor my skills are. However I did my course because it touched on multimedia, film, editing and other aspects I have a deep interest in and because I wanted some formal training to back up my self-taught skills.
So… the tutors would need to be just that, TUTORS and not some failed (possibly not but it became my impression) designer wannabe. Don’t give me a quickly hacked together A4 sheet of step by step instructions on how to do something without explaining the why behind it. Especially when the s/w is as complicated as C4D.
What else – force the tutors to front up and actually give genuine feedback. I got a distinction for my C4D work but a fellow student who spent hours a day perfecting his use of it and was far better than I yet only got a merit.
Only the overall course tutor gave us feedback, yet we were told at the outset that all sections would have standard feedback forms filled out…! Yeah right.
Oh and make it relevant to us the students. Interesting to note that of the 5yrs the course has been running only 1 person has gone on to do anything in design of any sort so far. Not a good record I’d hazard and I know only a few were like me never intending to go into the ‘business’.
Im a student in my last year, im currently on a work placement and this had made me think that im not good enough for a graphic design job and i don’t have enough experience, brief at uni go on for ever and there so specific. On placement the brief were loose and the company spends most of there time pitching there ideas to clients and they turn out a lot of work and come up with ideas and have them made within hours. i feel that uni needs to have compulsory three month placement and have quicker briefs.
Training in presentation skills. What good is doing a great design if you can’t effectively pitch it to a client who bases everything on whether or not it suits his personal taste?
I’m currently a senior graphic design student and I should say that our courses are pretty good, however I would change a couple of things. It would be nice to have had behind the scenes training. What I mean is getting a lesson behind the scenes or rather what happens after design leaves your hands like going to the printers. They’re spending too much time and effort in trying to change someone who has no sense of design into someone who has an intuition for design. You can’t learn intuition, but you can learn programs and the necessary means to carry out a design. They spend too much time on the beginning and not the end. Our web courses don’t even teach you how to interact with a server or maintain a website. They only teach you the code, but not how to use it all when you’re finished. :|
Its funny you ask this, last year I thought, what would I do different?
One of the key things was:
I would let the students know how they can improve there chances of getting in, CV’s, portfolios and such like.
And also I would bring in an industry professional or two to talk with them.
Now when I was thinking this I was a commercial web designer working for a pretty large company so I volunteered to come along, and it went down very well, I think the students really got a feel for what I was saying.
On the back of this I was offered to come and teach industry standard web design, rather than having my students rely on Dreamweaver; I taught them how to hand code, and think their ideas out, I covered wire-framing, sketching, inspiration… to try and break them out of this stale pre-made course work that is 10 years out of date.
Can’t really explain the story in full but the long and the short of it was….
I taught them the standards way, the fun way, the way that they would do it in a work place… while keeping it in the here and now…
I still love teaching in my spare time :) This was all caused be me being a bit mad that I spent a year learning stuff like “director lingo” and then the industry just scoring it out.
Anyhow hang cool people :)
my site is Scottish media. feel freedrop me a line :)
I’m currently a Graphic Design student from Austria/Tirol, and before i’d run a design course, i’d check if students are really intrested into (graphic, or another) design – i’d also check who they are, to know if my course is the right course for them (= at my academy i know/see a lot of people studying something they aren’t intrested into. and for me it’s not fine to work with them ;)). And after checking this point, i’d try to teach/coach every student individual, even if it needs a long time. So if we’d do a project, for instance, where the students have to do a CorporateDesign or a CI, i’d speak with everyone about his/her concept and help her/him to find a good concept.
All in all, “Individuality” would be the important part of my course, to let them know that nobody is or does the same thing, cause in my opinion “standart” or “normality” is your design-death. And it’s important to be and work individual from the first step of a design-career :)
I graduate next month on the 14th from Southeast Technical Institute for an AAS Degree in Graphic Communications.
I would have more research in planning for product design creation. Who is the market? What are the demographics of that market? What has that market been interested in the past and present in?
Color theory. I believe color theory should be explored in REAL DEPTH.
Graphic design isn’t really painting and coloring pretty pictures but there needs to be more information and practice especially with the new features that CS5 has to offer such as in Photoshop. How can you be really creative if you have no ideas of your own and they are all from the internet or your immediate surroundings? I can Photoshop your own ideas!
Most graphic design students end up in a print related field. But have to start at the very bottom of the totem pole because graphic design students are not able to actually use a PRESS AT SCHOOL. Outdated, will be outdated too fast, too expensive and to expensive to maintain, setup takes to long, cleanup takes to long and so on……… I want to see a school with a new state of the art high speed print setup that works with either blanks or rolls of paper. WHY PAY 100K TO GET A JOB THAT STARTS AT MINIMUM WAGE BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO EXPERIENCE ON A PRINT PRESS. (sry that one just really pisses me off!!)
There are of course more things I would add as I am a few weeks from graduation and am experiencing first hand what needs to be changed but maybe I’ll save that for another time!
I wish we were more involved in AIGA – I have been in AIGA for 3 years now at the same school and we have only raised a few hundred dollars. I am going to move this summer to North Carolina and I hope that there is a better AIGA following than there is in South Dakota. I want to see speakers, talk with people in the industry in person and so on. I suppose South Dakota is just to small to have anything really important happen in!
absolutely love the library design……
as to what i would do if i ran my own design course….throw them to the wolves….get a few clients and have them deal with the client directly, in school one thing that we never quite got is that designers do not design for themselves and that every client is a world to themselves.