I Heart Design

The Design Journal, 2001

The importance of design inspiration sources and the way designers utilise them during their designing activities is well-documented. For example the use of nature as a source of inspiration is widespread in a variety of design disciplines, such as the invention of VELCRO in the early 1940’s. More recently architectural design firms such as Frank Gehry and the Future Systems Group have received widespread recognition for their creative use of design inspiration sources. Gehry, responsible for the design of the hugely successful Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, lists one of his main sources of design inspiration as “fish”. In the realm of product design, inspirational sources are also viewed as a significant factor in the development of unique and innovative objects. For example, in the field of product design, the hugely successful Michael Young includes the work of the American conceptual artist Jeff Koons, old tractors and milk bottles in his list of wide ranging inspiration sources. Similarly, the British furniture designer Matthew Hilton has used imagery and inspiration sources in his “Wait” plastic chair from classic furniture pieces of the 1960’s and 1970’s including Vico Magistretti’s “Selene” chair and Joe Colombo’s “Universale” chair. However studies into what inspires undergraduate design students, to date, have been neglected. Thus, the goals of this paper are firstly to investigate what inspires undergraduate design students and secondly explore any correlation between the formal undergraduate coursework performances of the students and their design inspiration sources.

2008

A new course meant an opportunity to regenerate how design history is introduced to first year students in several disciplines, including architecture, industrial design, interior design and landscape architecture. With a trans-disciplinary teaching team, we aimed to make history relevant and interesting to everyone, avoiding the usual errors of deluges of dates or complicated historiographical or design theories. Our first delivery of this new unit 'Introducing Design History' in 2006 was successful: students became hooked on history. The teaching team members are still excited about the future and eagerly implementing improvements for 2007. We know why it worked: the content and delivery worked in tandem. The teachers were enthusiastic and sincere. The teaching approach was well prepared, providing tutorial teaching guides that ensured a consistency across 16 tutorial groups for eventually 380 students. Keeping it real and vibrant are the recurring goals for effectively te...

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my wife, Marcelle Boudreaux, not least for her unwavering support and patience during my most grumpy moments, but also for her insightful feedback as this project progressed toward its natural conclusion.

Design Issues, 1994

Although this essay concentrates on issues of graphic design education, my arguments also pertain to education in other areas of design; most apply to arts education and many are relevant to post-secondary education in general. I assume a university setting, although many of the ideas presented in this essay apply equally to art schools. Finally, just as the essay calls for a broad view of design education and a broad context for design, I hope it will be read in a broad context and the arguments applied wherever appropriate.

Art and design are at a crossroads in higher education. The choices we make now will affect the future of our disciplines. How will we move forward, making productive changes that enhance our position as vital and valued contributors to the mission of our colleges and universities?

Design language, its familiarity, articulation and appreciation are primary to design cognizance and learning. This is dealt with in the foundation courses in design schools like the National Institute of Design (NID), in India which was modeled in the lines of Bauhaus.

2012

Passion is the energy that comes from bringing more of you into what you do" (Rosengren, 2004) In the school based subject of design and technology (D&T) a fundamental element is designing and making functional products using critical and creative thinking whilst developing skills in the use of a variety of processes and materials. The links between creativity, intrinsic motivation and passion have been well researched (e.g.

Traditionally design history has been presented to students by "the sage on the stage" , allowing students to passively experience the history through reproduced images flashed upon a screen. Putting the discovery of concepts, history, participation and engagement into the hands of the class, small group projects complemented by visits to the Special Collections at the Yale School of Architect, enabled students to discover the similarities within periods and develop an understanding of the role of technology and social forms upon graphic design. Each student gains a look forward through "the rear-view mirror" of history, preparing them for the challenges of a career in a field that borrows theory from architecture and fine arts, but incorporates cultural aspects that range from "deconstruction, semiotics and gender studies" (Armstrong 2009). Reproducing period projects, the students appreciates the evolution of forms through technologies that foster the separation of content from presentation, incorporate user interaction and connect society through the metaphor of the global network.