Teaching Design

Just flipping through Teaching Graphic Design, another compilation edited by Steven Heller.

The book consists of sample curricula, “Course Offerings and Class Projects from the Leading Undergraduate and Graduate Programs” in graphic design and typography, professional practice, exhibition, and Web design.

Notably absent is much mention of social responsibility. Only one chapter by Stewart Ewan attempts to do so explicitly (with projects on designing flags... and currency. Blah.) Another assignment asks students to design a poster “about human rights.” But to what ends?

This absence of any actual public engagement is particularly striking because Heller’s previous volume, Citizen Designer: Perspectives on Design Responsibility repeatedly and specifically fingers design education as the place where designers go astray and the reason designers are not more socially engaged.

Well, so much for that.

It raises the question, though, of what a book of progressive design curricula would look like.

A little Paolo Freire? A little Augusto Boal? I imagine something written not just for design teachers, but for a broader audience. It might touch on:

• Using design research and problem solving methodolgy to address civic issues
• Designing visual tools for public participation
• Reading assumptions encoded in images, structures, and practices
• Design for community building and advocacy
• Using design to streamline civic processes
• Issues on sustainable design and responsible printing
• Methods of user testing
• Multi-lingual design

It would cover media including:

• Basic typography
• Information design
• Documentary or narrative design
• Posters, graffiti, and street art
• Transportation graphics and civic way finding
• Mapping
• Branding and communications design
• Design for multimedia

It would integrate principles of cost-effectiveness, accessibility and inclusiveness, usability, environmental sensitivity, and technologically appropriate solutions.

Too much for undergrads? Why not throw in some historical analysis of art, design and social movements? An analysis of strategy and tactics... I could go on.

Any takers? Done properly, such book might be useful for grassroots groups and social movements, too. I’m sure there’s grant money to be had.