To be [a graphic designer], or not to be, that is the question
Posted on December 6, 2016I studied five years to become a (graphic) designer. Five years that were available and shouted for possibilities to make me a complete designer.
This statement opens to discussion three main ideas, issues and/or questions I would like to share, concerning how my specific undergraduate program is structured and why I believe a transdisciplinary view in the early design practice is much needed to be incorporated, for the benefit of future generations.
Though I do not regret studying the undergrad program I chose (and I would even pick it all over again knowing what I know today), there is a lot I would have liked to have been offered. Currently, I sense the calling to help adjust my previous Design School system, incorporating new and improved ways of approaching the design discipline (at least at the school where I studied).
I offer three lines of consideration, to begin with.
- Looking at the past: Is the 5 years-plan of forming designers into the world well thought through to make the best of that study time?
- Looking at the present: What does it mean to be a (graphic) designer?
- Looking at the future: How is it decided to define the design practice? Who takes responsibility in how the design practice is taught? When do incorporate new features?
This diagram represents a very over-all basic structure of what consisted the 5 years I studied to be a graphic designer. I would like to revise some issues with this structure that could be reviewed to improve the learning experience in the program.
The first phase was a year of exploration in the sense that students were induced to, by the end of the year, choose between ongoing a graphic or industrial design specialization for the rest of the program. Generally, when students enter this program they do not even really know the distention between both design disciplines and neither it is deeply explained throughout that first year. Though, you do rapidly figure out that graphics has much more to do with a 2D artistic approach and industrial with an 3D material artistic approach. Which is precisely the problem: how is it possible that students decide just based on that? Where is the guide that clarifies this? Though I believe it is necessary to have as many tools as possible and even being specialized in a particular design sub discipline if you wish, I strongly believe in not framing disciplines so harshly. In my program there wasn’t a space to be involved in industrial design projects if you were part of the graphic program, nor otherwise. And even though from the beginning of the program, I knew I found myself more near continuing graphic or visual communication solutions, I always was curious why we were not pushed to combine projects with our industrial design peers, for example.
The second year in basic terms had a more technical approach, where we were introduced formally with design tools to work aesthetic and technical component of our design projects, which of course was fundamental, but at the same time felt like it was lacking something. Which is why the third year came in handy.
The third year had a more theory study approach, understanding research methodologies, semiotic, marketing and other lines of study that grounded our design projects. At this point, I was in the middle of the 5-year program and having a lot of questions about design thinking scenarios, and identifying how everything I was being taught was very helpful and interesting, but unclear how to properly combine the different areas of study or follow a concrete methodology considering a bigger scenario, a system scenario. I remember a professor that was teaching a design research methodology course and he had to give the same class to the graphic and industrial division separately, and not just because we were too many students, but because the course indication was to share in class case studies oriented to the specific design discipline. I remember once, he entered the classroom furious because he had tried to convince the board of the design department to merge the two courses because he didn’t believe in the distinction of the design disciplines (regarding a system approach) and wanted to create a collective space between the two fields, so different design students could work together for once. At the moment I didn’t really consider the weight of his outrage, I even thought that the disciplines were complementary, because I was thinking from a technical point of view and not a design thinking point of view. And even so, that class stuck with me throughout time, and when I eventually did understand the design thinking process of a project, I realized what he said that day, and it all made sense. From a systemic point of view, approaching a methodology or analyzing a system, it is not fundamental from which work field you come from, in fact combining your skills with others from different backgrounds can only help you open up to a better perspective. I was missing a stronger point of view regarding project methodologies with a design thinking lens.
I better realized this in my fourth year. Which was different and unexpected. Personally, it was something exceptionally good for me as a student. I had the option of two Studio courses, one very much different form the other. The one I selected taught design thinking systems, user experience and human center design. Three areas that immediately made sense to me, of how I wanted to practice design projects and interventions. That was the moment were everything I learned about design tools, branding, user psychology and more, become part of a design practice framework that I wanted to specialize in. If you go back to my diagram, I represented this phase as a golden blank box, just waiting for it to be filled in.
Then finally, the fifth year arrived and I endeavored to incorporate this vision in my thesis project, which was a very fitting opportunity to develop a personal project that motivated me.
Though, as a result of my undergraduate program, I developed into a (grateful) designer, I find there is not a clear path of personal discovery into defining the designer that one wants to be during the process. Personally, because I found myself in the right time and the right place, I had an insight opportunity. Since being part of a course with a specific professor that taught me the final key I needed to ground everything I discovered my design practice. It was essential to me, but what about the other students? Did everybody find the same insight? Why is not regulated in the curriculum? And why did I discover this one year before graduating? Why are there not more opportunities to work with other students from other fields, and co-design? Why is the concept of co-design not central in the program?
In Chile, and probably lots of parts in the world, it is common to seek designers to beautify a process, a project, an outcome. And though we do have the tools to do so with the purpose of making communications more effective, this is the tip of the iceberg, as they say. And while some designers are perfectly fine being in charge of that phase of the project, I want to fight the idea that designers are ONLY considered to be part of that final phase of the project.
I believe that many academic design programs do not invest the time and space to change that perspective, it starts from inside school walls. So, if that doesn’t change from the formation of early designers, how can future generations be expected to have a strong stand in participating in core design thinking methods?
Programs, like the one I was part of, need a strong transdisciplinary intervention from an early phase, to explore the different paths a designer can have after college and the impact the design discipline can partake.
I am a graphic designer ready to explore studying systems and seek co-design working spaces.
– Javi Arenas