IEN Conference and Assembly
The University of Brighton
Brighton, UK
June 21-22, 2003
The two-day IEN Conference included speakers from 9 countries who reflected on graphic design education in different geographic, social and economic environments and addressed the challenges facing design education in these areas. A number of educational challenges are common to all of the regions that were represented – it is IEN’s intention to support initiatives around these common challenges in the future. Some of these common issues include the global versus the local debate within design education; sustainable development; raising awareness of graphic design at a secondary school level; providing inspiring role models for graphic design students; the incorporation of traditional and modern language in teaching and in projects; fostering the relationship between government and education; the development of resources; and faculty support and development.
One of the key speakers, Ian Sutherland from the Durban Institute of Technology in South Africa, spoke about the changes taking place in South African design education and the impact of institutional mergers and national imperatives of transformation. Professor Inyoung Choi, from South Korea, provided an outline of the program at Hanyang University at Ansan and its focus on industry.
There were four speakers from the Middle East, including Icograda’s past president David Grossman, who explained that the main challenge facing graphic design education in Israel includes a lack of understanding of what graphic design is and why it is important. He also spoke of the lack of design promotion on the government and industry level and addressed the challenges surrounding the development of curriculum in the fast-changing pace of the profession. Halim Chouiery from the Lebanese American University emphasized the importance of local culture and heritage in education whilst Sherry Blankenship from Notre Dame University in Lebanon related the difficulties facing their new Masters’ program within the broader challenges facing designers in a country with multiple languages, cultures, and traditions. Dr. Khaled Tarazi from the University of Petra in Jordan described the problems inherent in the accreditation process, issues that many schools worldwide are currently experiencing.
One of the three speakers from the United States, Susan Merrit from San Diego State University, outlined a number of concerns that included: moving towards specialization versus holistic education; the costs of education for students; lack of overall commitment and curiosity from students and faculty; and retaining consistency between programs. Anne Dutlinger from Moravian College-related some of the challenges facing the teaching of design history in graphic design courses. She spoke about the broadening of the average student’s perspective and proposed an approach to revisit design history in a non-linear way. John De Mao from Virginia Commonwealth University outlined the new course that has been set up in Qatar and illustrated the significant challenges of teaching design in a country where there is no graphic design profession, and where the enormities of cultural difference and influences impact on the very nature of the course.
One of the two speakers from Australia, Stuart Gluth from the University of South Australia, spoke about the teaching of creativity and the assessment of design and thinking skills as separate to the assessment of computer and technical skills. He outlined the importance of creativity and intuition in methodologies and design processes, the challenges involved in linking the creative processes into design methodology, and the preconceptions about creativity and creative people. The other speaker from Australia, Russel Bevers from RMIT (Melbourne), provided a brief outline of graphic design education in Australia and how many of the challenges are based on new teaching and learning methodologies, particularly in regards to online teaching and learning. He proposed that online learning is a move from verbal to textural communication and is a largely collaborative and participatory learning process with its own technological restraints.
Russian Rahim from the University of Teknologi in Malaysia outlined their main challenge as the disparity between industry expectations and the skills of graduating students. He also spoke of the teaching and learning of design within multicultural contexts and the importance of connectivity and collaboration.
As one of the two speakers from the United Kingdom, Jonathan Doney from the Somerset College of Arts and Technology introduced the educational initiative of the International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD) and the importance of teaching typographic skills within design programs. Bruce Brown from Brighton University outlined the challenges facing teaching and learning methodologies and the development of design content. He also spoke about the design archives at Brighton University and the importance of developing design archives throughout the world.
The IEN Assembly that directly followed the IEN Conference helped to lay the groundwork for the IEN’s future activities and attempted to define the objectives and mission of the IEN as well as a future course of action. Working groups proposed numerous benefits that the IEN could offer to schools and educators, including sharing of resources (in particular book lists and bibliographies); the development of an IEN statement on design research and education; support for the development of archiving and archives; staff development and exchange; research initiatives; international workshops and exchanges for students; international benchmarking; the development of an online IEN journal; and faculty recruitment.
The IEN Conference and Assembly emphasized the commonality of many of the challenges facing design education programs and colleges around the world and the potential support that the IEN could offer to all of the IEN participants ●
“IEN Conference and Assembly,” Icograda Board Message Issue 07 Volume 2001/2003, September 2003
By Tiffany Turkington, Icograda General Secretary 2001-2003
My Presentation:
Cross-disciplined Design Education Method (CDEM) for Solving the Design Problem
Abstract: With the competitive global economy, we understand that design influences the consumer’s general level of its intention, and it leads to the business profit and even long-term growth. Design exists at a different level in the 21st century, and so the design education. Design education must fulfill the needs of the business world. Therefore, the importance of cross-disciplined design education in Korean universities has increased in recent years because Korea’s economy relies heavily on exporting goods.
The design must not depend on purely visual enlightenment, although it is a significant part of the design. Instead, its communication through the contents should portray the design. The design is associated and processed with psychology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, mathematics, marketing, and writing. But all students cannot comprehend the connection between design and other disciplines. For that reason, I formulate this Cross-disciplined Design Education Method (CDEM) when teaching the students. Problem-solving begins with identifying the problem. The problem assists with the society and the target consumers. To portrait their needs and desires, I show them how to identify and describe its psychological impact on the target consumers, its philosophical message on a product or/and business, and its short or/and long-term effect on society. Once these elements are accomplished, the students utilize marketing strategy to approve them and explore writing and design possibilities.
This Cross-disciplined Design Education Method has successfully educated the students to comprehend the purpose of the design and to help create a design for people.
