by victoria | Oct 1, 2012 | design methodologies
Watching a video from the AIGA New Contexts presentation on shifting paradigms, Holly Willis was talking about the changing classroom. At one point Willis asked if the term “graphic” was even necessary in the term graphic design. She wondered if the nomenclature had been outgrown given the changes in the industry today. Of course she alluded to the loss identity many designers would feel if that word was dropped. We are in a phase of emergent technologies and the way we communicate is shifting daily. As well as the role of a designer. If we are moving away from artifacts and into systems of design, then what does the artifact designer do? And what if? Is it wrong to want to create? Willis continues with this move away from artifacts and isolation as designers and what they might mean to the classroom. Is it necessary to be tethered to a drafting table anymore? Or can the classroom move away from the indoor lab. And if we do retain the lab should we consider it the making lab? Because eventually there will be a merging of what happens in this classroom. Another idea that came through as a way to teach was to allow for less determined outcomes. This is what we experience as MFA students. Can it become part of earlier levels of education as well? This year I was asked to teach advanced projects at the community college. This course has print, web, illustration, multi-media and animators in the course all creating advanced projects. My role is not to teach software rather art direct the students as they create final portfolio pieces and a book. In effort to keep in mind the work the...
