ud2k – designing the design student

Stuart Mealing

Stuart Mealing is a reader in 'Computers and Drawing' at the Exeter School of Art & Design (University of Plymouth), a founder member of their Centre for Visual Computing and teaches in the graphic design department. Trained initially in Fine Art, he exhibited widely and taught in art colleges for many years whilst maintaining an interest in the development of computing and artificial intelligence. He later took a postgraduate degree in Computing in Design and since then has been an Honorary Research Fellow in Computer Science at Exeter University, a founding co-editor of Digital Creativity, has published four other books and his papers have appeared in a range of journals.

With genetic engineering imminent it is tempting to prepare a recipe for the ideal design student. To define the sequences of nucleotide bases in the chromosomal DNA and the conditions of maturation that will, in about 18 years, produce ud2k – the perfect undergraduate designer for the new millennium. A Frankenstein wunderkind built to conceive, create, devise, discover, draft, draw, fabricate, figure, formulate, hatch, invent, mastermind, meditate, model, originate, plot, scheme, style and weave. In short, to design.

This chapter will consider what might be the desirable manifestations of these imaginary biological tinkerings as evidenced by the skills and traits of the monster itself, i.e. what makes a good design student. These qualities will also be considered in the context of tendencies within the university system (in the UK) that is invested with the task of converting this raw material into worthwhile practitioners. Is 'BA (Design)' the ultimate hallmark of a good new designer or might the academisation of design, in order that it can be 'read' as a legitimate subject alongside Law and Classics, have deflected the discipline's natural apprentices?

Any wish-list of key attributes is to be modified, not only in response to the changing needs of design in the real world, but also to the educational structure within which training takes place. It is implicit in the process of selecting students for design courses that there are qualities and standards that are sought by receiving institutions, though these are more likely to be tacitly understood than precisely defined. I suspect that staff conducting interviews across the country would reach a high level of agreement over which applicants are the best and which the worst but there perhaps would be less agreement on a prioritised list of the characteristics they believe aspiring designers should possess. Try placing in order of importance: drawing skills, intelligence, creativity, determination and literacy and state which, if any, are dispensable.

Creativity

Creativity knows no bounds. Its forms are legion, its sources obscure, its ways devious in the extreme, but its fruits are patent for all to see in every domain of human life.

It is hard to imagine a good designer who is not creative but perhaps in a design team there is room for people with a range of talents and their roles may not require the demonstration of 'classical' creativity. I have on my shelves a book with a title that appears, at first glance, from the smug viewpoint of one trained as an artist, to be a classic oxymoron – Creative Accounting. You can be creative within other terms of reference. To apply creativity effectively, however, it needs to be coupled with other things. In studies of leading artists and scientists Anne Roe found that the only trait that stood out in common among individuals was a willingness to work hard and to work long hours. Whilst this is a trait that is likely to contribute to success in many fields, her observation threatens the uninformed impression of casual creativity offering an easy alternative to hard work. Thomas Edison is often quoted as saying that genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.

The characteristics of the creative act have been widely discussed and there is general agreement in the field that a mixture of rational and intuitive processes are involved and that the result displays originality. It is tempting to think of creativity as not being domain specific, to think that a creative free-thinker could have original ideas in any domain – (original AND useful of course, since to be original one merely has to be wrong when everyone else is right) – but originality is often a re-combination of elements into new patterns, which implies that the elements must be present and that therefore a basis of knowledge in a field is necessary to permit original thinking in that field. It is necessary to study design in order to come up with original design solutions. Indeed most researchers suggest an incubation period for the creative act primed by thorough immersion in the subject area – 'saturate yourself through and through with your subject ... and wait'. Pasteur's famous dictum 'in the field of (scientific) observation chance favours those who are prepared' expresses a similar thought.

Interestingly, however, it is often the newcomer to a field who displays the greatest originality, as the more often an individual has solved problems with given ingredients the greater is the 'set' and the less the likelihood of attaining a further creative solution using them again. Our designer must apparently be both knowledgeable about the area and yet new to it. Hopefully for those with many years' experience, newness can be equated with seeing the familiar afresh.

Educating the creative

Research has consistently suggested that general education does not reward or nurture the creative, Rogers for example saying that in education we tend to turn out conformists whose education is 'completed' rather than freely creative and original thinkers. Perhaps creative behaviour, typified by wild or silly ideas, humour and playfulness, is inconvenient in the orderly world of traditional classroom education. Conformity – 'sit still', 'be quiet' – is inimical to creativity.

In a study asking social science teachers to rate the importance of cognition, memory, convergent behaviour, divergent thinking and evaluation in their subject, convergent behaviour was consistently rated far higher than divergent thinking; nearly twenty times as highly in some areas. I suspect this still holds true across most subjects (and it is pointed out that convergent behaviour is more 'convenient' for the teacher). Other research from the same...