American Design Schools

Can we talk about the fact that Design has continued to try to pack more and more into a degree instead of accepting the fact that there may have to be some specialization in different areas and teams of different specialists to cover everything. being about the same age as Gadi, I have to admit that while I have gained a holistic outlook on design I know I did not have it in the beginning (none of us did). I agree that Design Education has a problem in the world, not just US, and it is the fact that we are trying to pack 10 lbs of sugar into a 5 lb sack. This is giving us a student that has lightly touched on each piece but never delved deeply into any specific area.

I do however totally agree with the overconfident nature of students today.

Good points Timf on all fronts.

“Much of the work that students show me in their portfolios is broken into two categories: skills work (3D CAD) and process work (research, model-making). Only a few show projects showcasing the applicant’s ability to integrate seamlessly all levels of creativity.”

I hope this isn’t a horrid question. But could someone elaborate a bit on what he means by ‘ability to integrate seamlessly all levels of creativity.’?

I agree with many of the things said so far. At the risk of sounding predictable to folks who’ve read any of my posts, I think it is extremely important for design schools to require students to spend a semester, maybe in the early to middle part of the program, learning about product development and how design fits into the bigger PD puzzle. Case studies - not analyses of the design , but real case studies of how the product was developed - starting with phase zero and concluding with the manufacturer’s response to product issues in the marketplace - would be invaluable to kids learning about what we do. Just like business school. On a related note, increased business coursework would be helpful since we essentially provide a business service. Should ID should be placed under the umbrella of the business school?

I like to think what we do is exactly the same as what any other professionals do except with a somewhat different skillset, and showing kids that the designer plays only a partial role in the creation of new product would do a lot to (1) humble the kids with lone visionary empath mindset, and (2) make sure kids end up on the right career path, whether it means they end up in design, marketing, human factors, design research, QA, engineering, or some other related field. That said, I also agree that programs need to do a better job with specialization. Some kids want to be killer stylists. Some want to be project managers. Some want to create IP and get VC funding for their ideas. Some want to develop medical devices. Each of these are very different career paths and each could be supported by different academic programs, but often I think kids don’t realize all the career choices available to them if they are interested in creating product.

I’ve been doing this ID thing for 8 years now, and I’m personally less sure than ever as to what the term “industrial designer” even means. What I do - my extemporaneous job description - varies so much from project to project that building an academic program to prepare me for it would have been extremely difficult. I’m grateful I went to a university, however, as my program required lab sciences, cog psy, HF, basic business and marketing coursework, and math through calc and statistics. For whatever weaknesses the program may have had in teaching me to be a great stylist, I learned a lot of language that made it much easier for me to communicate with people in all the ID-adjacent disciplines, and was able to pick up good enough styling/sketching skills on the job.

I agree bcpid that they should review case studies to get a feel for the process, but I disagree that what we do is the same as what other professionals do in the PD cycle with a different skill set. Their processes tend to be linear, more easily rationalized, and at least more objective. Ours can be heavily subjective, lateral, intuitive, and validated later. Seeing how the analytical works with the intuitive is very important, and how the most innovative things come from the collaboration (and friction) between different kinds of folks in the PD process.

I think you could take 10 examples of what each of us do on this board and you’d find theres such a wide range in our average day to day that trying to prepare a student for any particular area (corporate vs consultant, style jockey vs cad monkey, etc) that it’s going to be a challenge for any department even if schools did try to “Specialize”.

I do know that at least some of this is recognized. Having spoke to some of my former professors I believe they moved to a quarter based system instead of a semester based system to try and give students much quicker deep dives into very targeted areas which I think is a valid technique of responding to some of the criticisms.

Even then people we all know the person who graduates from Art Center probably won’t have a portfolio that looks much like someone from RISD. Someone from Cranbrook won’t look like someone from SCAD, etc.

What schools do need to be charged with is making sure their students put out a portfolio that is good enough for someone to say “hey this kid deserves a shot because their is some really great potential here that might fit with my company”. I’ve seen great work in the simplest of projects (a few SCAD grads stand out in recent memory) and I’ve seen crap work in overwhelmingly complex projects. I don’t agree with the article saying that a hire shouldn’t require training. They shouldn’t require hand holding, but you can’t expect to throw them into the fray and know what to expect unless they’ve already had enough internship experience to know the ropes.

If you went to me in college and said “In 3 years you’re going to spend most of your time arguing with engineers who barely speak english, get ready for it” I’m not sure I would have even known where to begin…maybe a minor in Chinese. :slight_smile:

the article mentions UC as a good example, I’ve recently heard they’re trying to create more of that specialization depth in thier graduates, but that’s a two edged sword.
I agree with Syd and believe the future will be less and less predictable. (How many of us are exactly where we planed when we graduated?) An NPR commentator has suggested the illiteracy of the 21’st century will not be the inablility to read, but rather the inability to learn.

Design can be commoditized to the same extent as Manufacturing, Accounting, Engineering, call centers, etc.
I’m not sure if the “…master of none” model will continue to work for undergraduate education. But will we force students to pick highly specific industries as Sophomores to work in after graduation? Will we follow Architecture and require a 6 year degree before they can get a degree? Here’s one I like: Do we start the design education in High School? I’m not sure.

Non liniar creativity is not the same as accounting. I think the kind of design that is 1+1=2 is already moving overseas. The kind of design with that added intangible value will remain. A lot of what i see coming out of schools is the first kind. It was probably always like this. I feel like I see a lot of projects that have the propped proccess, the research, the models, but not the moving result. This is a lofty goal for a student, but I think they cold be aware of it and aiming for it instead of being caught up with doing everything “right”. The most interesting, provocative, and memorable things tend to have an element of wrong.

The job of design is to drive sales and create market gain for our clients. If there wasn’t an objective, measurable outcome to what we do who would hire us? Even when our job is to elicit an emotional response with customers and end users, that should be measurable.

This article nearly made me cry.
Throughout the last 10 years the whole of Europe gave it’s best to mimic
the American academic standards through the “Bologna” process.
Wich meant, that Germany had to give up the 5-7 year diploma curriculums in
favour of BS and MA courses that stack up in american manner.

De facto this meant, that the wholistic curriculum was broken down in 3 ! BS degrees.
Do not wonder, that over here BS sometimes is not translated as Bacheolor of Science,
but Bulls*…

These new BS degrees on the other side were pumped up with CAD and rendering
work. The hand scetching and sculpting courses went down in time and quality.
Nevertheless the students that leave my alma mata nowadays are very capable in
solving “real world” design agency tasks, as they were trained from day one to work
in interdisciplinary teams, to deliver results through processes, that were standardised
during the course.

What is striking though is the reduction in really surprising, brilliant new solutions.
I fear those youngsters are well trained to polish a turd, but they struggle to
distinguish a turd from a nugget…
*
*
What catched my attention during my professional tenure as a designer was the
unability of many fellow product (industrial) designers to set a stylistic goal and
to reach it. Often it looks like a hit and miss game with many redo loops.
But the dream of the marketeer is a design machine that amalgamates some phrase
like “futuristic” into form (effortlessly).

mo-i

I agree with what you say-

There is respect to be had for all seasoned industrial designers, manager, heads, etc. -one thing that makes me cringe is when a designer thinks he is awesome enough to start preaching the same boring flavor of ‘the kids these days’

so lots of flaws in his logic : part to whole comparison flaws,
past to present comparison flaws,
appeal to authority flaws

lots of other ones too- no one should take these articles seriously because it really is just an opinion- and often opinions are loaded with self-serving biases. People have designed really great objects without following a standard process, to put too much emphasis on process over the result seems dubious.

There are plenty of excellent students coming out of American design schools. Yeah the youngins should respect their elders, but when the elders start with that ‘kids these days’ garbage is when they have peaked and are on the dinosaur path

Helping the bottom line is aspect of what we do, but not it is not the entirety of our focus. Building brand, building user relationships, impacting culture are also roles we play if we don’t want to be a commodity. The C level execs at the best brands tend to understand this. There are all the things you do right, and then that little extra that seems to come from nowhere… but I think you and I had this conversation before, and neither of us seems willing to budge. I accept that what you say as an part of the truth, but not the full truth.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/148/artist-athlete-ceo.html
http://www.fastcompany.com/article/the-innovation-secrets-of-steve-jobs

Emotional response to specific input is not measurable with any kind of accuracy at any kind of scale… I don’t want to live in a world where that is measurable with any kind of accuracy! :slight_smile: Sales is not a measurement of emotional response… unless peoples hearts are beating out their chests for Camrys tract homes.

Frank Lloyd Wright once said that he felt part of his job was to inspire the people who lived in his homes to live the kinds of lives and be the kinds of people they truly aspired to be (I’m paraphrasing). I doubt I’ve done anything at that level yet, but it is something to push toward. I remember going to the store as a kid and just drooling over the latest pair of Nikes, the coolest Walkman, crawling all over cars at car shows, and just being in awe certain things.

You typically won’t see “create awe” or “emit wonder” on a business document. The funny thing is, if you pursue those things, the money typically follows… but if you start by pursuing money and sales targets, the awe and wonder parts seldom follow.

This topic seems to come up once a quarter and always provokes good discussion.

Our profession demands a lot. ID demands an exceptional level of creativity, analytical and critical thinking ability, as well as high physical skill (drawing, model making, etc) and technical skill (software). I have a difficult time thinking of ANY other profession that requires such a high level of contrasting competencies. Education is doing its best to get the 10lbs into the 5lbs sack (love that TimF) but the result is clearly that it’s not working all that well, except for a few gems. I don’t think the solution is to make school longer, or decrease breadth to increase depth. The most successful portfolios I’ve seen are the ones with maximum professional exposure. You have to see it and live it to really get and know where you need to be.


Yo’s point…
" I feel like I see a lot of projects that have the propped proccess, the research, the models, but not the moving result. "

…is the one that really breaks my heart. Styling seems to have become a naughty word and almost looked down on. The sway of education and right now is definitely more towards “process” and research and observation and justifying your object, and designing the experience, while the object’s physical beauty has been put on the back burner. For me, stuff has to look good. Some might argue that doing all that stuff will lead to a beautiful object, and yes it can help to inform the physicality of the thing, but in the end, you can’t analyze yourself into a having beautiful object. That skill needs to be nurtured and practiced like everything else. This phenomenon happens in the professional world too. So to bring this post full circle, I think design schools need to get back to the Thing. Process is great but the result is what matters. The best way to learn it is to see it in real professional settings.

amen Brett. You know how Howie and I feel about it!

Sorry Sir, but I strongly disagree on that. There is a time to sow and a time to harvest.

You can’t hurry and have both at one time or you’re eating the seedlings…

I see that the fundaments of our profession are not nurtured enough as the view was
shifted onto “process”, as we concordantly found out. You can’t expect to smooth these
shortcommings out in “the real world”. And Gadi Amit clearly states, he doesn’t like to
invest into young talent via training on the job.

Which is a second problem.

Nobody can really expect to get something for nothing. Not even design agency stars.

mo-i

Another aspect that I have noticed is the age and experience of students in American design programs.

Many international students I attended school with had either attended junior college or had preformed some sort of social service before they started their design education. I really think this helps them bring a level of maturity and professionalism to how they approach school.

I entered design school as a “true freshmen” and could definitely see a split between those who wanted to have a typical college experience, and those who apprpoached their major with a sense of professionalism. Design is a very labour and time intensive study and for someone going to college for the first time and looking for the liberating experience, they usually find it’s a very hard balance to maintain.

I think the profession lacks a bridge between the world of academia and the professional world. This would have been called an apprenticeship, it is sometimes called a practicum or residency in other fields, essentially acknowledging and formalizing the mentor relationship. I disagree with that part of the article, and think it is important as a creative director to put serious thought, time, and effort into helping to shape our designers, to help them become who they want to be, and develop their skills, instincts, and raise their perception of what the bar is.

This is a good topic, one of which I am very passionate about as I enjoy the mentoring and education side of design as well as the practical aspects.

  1. Different types of schools provide different types of education suitable to different kinds of jobs. This part of the article I think is spot on, and I do wonder how the different programs could be better identified. Perhaps different types of degrees? Is the issue (again) that the umbrella of “Design” is too broad and loosely defined?

Practical ID education with a focus on engineering suitable for most consumer product and in-house work. ie. Black and Decker, Industrial components, etc.

Artistic Design focusing on producing those one-off objects or statement pieces. ie. Alessi, Droog, etc.

Advanced ID focusing on a higher level of consumer insight, integrated branding and strategy. ie. IDEO type consultancy work, premium branded consumer products.

Lifestyle/Styling ID focusing on product innovation, fashion and target markets. ie. Auto design, footwear design, etc.

  1. Internships/Apprenticeship. I think the tide is turning here where more and more firms are taking in interns and more programs are requiring some sort of intern term. What would be great would be a general outlining document that says what the internship should provide (basic responsibilities, length, etc.). Something for a National/International design organization (ICSID) perhaps to draft/adopt.

  2. Skills. Agree 100% that the focus on skills in many programs is off balanced (ie. too much 3d, not enough sketching, not enough thinking, etc.).

  3. Process. Process (aside from sketching) is the one thing I normally find lacking in many submitted portfolios. That being said, I also do often come across those portfolios that have great process but weak results. The focus on process I find is often process for the sake of process, as something to show, rather than a means to an end. I think in this way “process” needs to be redefined in context of the results. For me, process is key, but it is also often very messy, and I do believe that results speak for themselves. Process in some cases may be only 2 napkin sketches, or a page of doodles, other times it can be a thorough research component. Good process to show and weak results is almost as disappointing as weak results with no process at all.

  4. Standards and evaluation. To me, this is one of the biggest weak spots in education, where schools I find are preparing students to have an over-inflated estimation of their level and rarely provide real critical evaluation. Of course schools making money and not wanting to fail everyone are a big part. Teachers that do not have practical work experience I think is the other. In my own teaching experience I have come across this many times. A project submitted is weak, but yet based on the school’s evaluation criteria I can’t give less than a C for D- work. 50% is a D whereas is real life it is a failure. If educators and those running education programs would be more harsh, I think it would better prepare students. Better to fail in school where the consequences are relatively minor than getting into your first job and fail where real products, money and your job may be on the line.

All that being said, I think there is also a discrepancy of expectation. Not all students will be awesome and prepared for work. By standard statistics there must always be those who excel and those who are poor with the majority being somewhere in the middle. There are suitable placements for most of those people and we need to realize all grads will not be superstars. That being said, of course a more honest evaluation by students and educators could increase this average and better meet expectations to honest evaluations.

R

Great post, Richard.

In fact, the umbrella of “Design” has been over inflated untill now. There was a time, when (here in Germany) degrees
were separated into “produkt design” and “industrie design”. The former was the artestry of building one offs, the latter
tought the skills to develope goods, which are to be produced in large scale. Nobody outside the design community
understood the difference… And the weak return on investment for the students in “produkt” made these universities
drop that moniker in favour of simply “design” or “iternational” or “eco” or what ever blurr you’d like.

The difference to engineering is, that engineers are used to and willing to work (and teach) according to very strict
standards. Designers don’t.

The education of young designer needs to be reorganised on many levels internationally. Instead every school can
have even the strangest curriculum and call it “design”. Try that with engineering.
At least here in Germany you would get hung on the next lamp post.

mo-i

This problem is very complicated. It has been awesome reading every ones opinions about the subject. As a fairly recent grad I have always felt that school should have been pass and fail. No one really seems to care what grades you got so passing and failing students for there class would encourage people to focus on there work with out worrying about grades. Also it would make the teachers life easier and more free to be critical. I do feel that internships are pretty much the key to employment and every grad should have one. Preferable an internship with a company recognized in the industry you want to go into. This was the biggest thing for me once I got and internship at a large recognizable company everything real fell into place. I was surprised at the response I got from industry on my portfolio when I graduated. I had fair amount of hand sketching and that real differentiated my portfolio. Interviewers would say “it is nice to see good hand sketching all I get is 3d models these days.” I did a lot of portfolio reviews and that made a huge difference I learned so much from professionals before and after graduation by doing portfolio reviews. These should be mandatory to graduate. This seems like the bridge that has been mentioned but I do remember being a student and being confused on how to actually land a job. But I have to say the process of figuring that out has been fun. I am not sure if there was an easier way that I would have taking it.