SENSIBLE LEARNING OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN
Sensible Learning of Intelligent Design
Conceptual processes establish unique and individual criteria.
Teaching implies designing, as teaching is synonymous with communicating. Graphic ideas are named and applied to verbal arguments. The visual manner of thinking design and its learning process correspond to a language, in the context of which designers will translate verbal content into graphic content.
The objective
was to convince [...] that what is needed is to set one s feet back on
the ground, and get rid of theories and ideologies weakened by a lack
of contrast, and recover the spontaneity and simplicity of an honest
trade and its sensible learning.
Norberto Chaves. Teaching design or learning to communicate. tipoGrafica (43).
I
am a proud descendant of a family of stonecutters, of stone carvers and
house builders; it is more than likely that tradition has ingrained an
almost indelible imprint in my genome. The craft was taught in a
sensible way, yet I must admit that in most cases it was transmitted
without the slightest possibility of criticism by the apprentice of the
master and his methods. Doubting was discouraged. And then, one day,
with the development of new materials, the warmth of stone gave way to
the rigidity of bricks and concrete. This had dire consequences for the
appearance of my small town. However, we cannot but admit that there
are marvelous buildings made with these and other new materials,
undoubtedly because the apprentice who questions his master or excels
him can add innovation to his craft. Neither doubting nor surpassing
should be considered a lack of respect for the master. Respect has
nothing to do with an absurd blind faith in his knowledge.
Yet,
what has happened to design? Typographers, printers and other artists
were the artisans of graphic design. In the course of time those
artisans became designers. However, today we are finding it hard to
understand what happened in the process of evolution of our discipline.
At some point the term became contaminated. Possibly someone outside
the field of design began to use the expression misguidedly, or we
designers ourselves favoured these new and arbitrary meanings. Anarchy
was also a beautiful word, with an almost idyllic meaning related to
the freedom of the individual, until it began to be associated with its
other side: disorder, incoherence and confusion.
We all
know that design s loss of prestige has been compounded by the abusive
and globalizing implantation of a consumer and market based society.
Many of the new so-called designer products and services, are frivolous
and possess neither functional nor aesthetic quality and,
paradoxically, designers did not even participate in many of them.
Designer furniture, designer drugs, even designer children . And jokes
on the subject of design which we accept, as we should, with humour. We
designers do what we can to correct the misunderstanding. However, we
are either too few or too individualistic, or else we simply do not
have sufficient command of oral and written language. Graphic ideas can
be named and need to be applied with verbal rationales, either before
or after expressing them on paper. It is probable that our way of
thinking is primarily visual and we, naturally, prefer our own
language.
Our task consists, precisely, in switching
from one language to another, of translating verbal concepts and
contents into graphic concepts. Learning to translate is not easy and
one can be either a good or a bad translator.
Learning to design is not an easy task
Both
teachers and students are immersed in a specific universe of factors
that determine whether learning will be a success or a failure. It is
not easy to either learn or teach design.
Some students
find it hard to learn to distinguish quality in graphic design. Others
are born with the knack for organizing contents, communicating
messages, transmitting the relevant connotations which respond to
certain objectives, conducting the required experimental research when
necessary, making in-depth evaluations of the relationship between
language and image, innovating in the application of the resources of
the graphic language. In the case of these latter students, the teacher
does not need to do more than light the wick for their capability to
surge forth.
Supposing that the student has a minimum
capability for learning design, what is truly important for the teacher
is to successfully instill in the pupil the ability to develop
criteria, which will be the tools that will enable him to evaluate the
quality of a design or whether the solution which is offered is a
worthy one. In other words, to develop his ability to provide
alternatives which make sense, which have soul , and are neither
senseless nor hollow, frivolous nor made superficially appealing by
means of a computer, that is, to develop the student s ability to
produce intelligent design .
And neither is it easy to teach design
Here
again, supposing that the teacher also knows what intelligent design is
all about, teaching how to design is a very complex activity.
Understanding the basics and learning to perceive them visually takes
time.
Which is also needed for experimentation and consideration
on the practice and in practice , which are the marrow of the student s
learning of design and of his future profession.
It should be
added that each student learns in a different way and the teacher must
possess sufficient insight to perceive his way of learning and adapt
himself to the student s own reasoning powers, educational and cultural
background, interests and intellectual maturity. Furthermore, it is
only natural to believe that it is the teacher s duty to teach with
illusion, transmitting the emotion, the passion and the importance of
what it is hoped will be learned, being mindful of the pedagogical
interpretation, presenting it in accordance with the level of learning
of the student, in perfectly intelligible terms, capable of motivating
creativity, criticism, analysis and personal experimentation with the
craft. Although it is progressively easier to instill enthusiasm in the
students because they have demystified the teaching methodology and
their future, and they know that the only requirement will be to become
expert Photoshop students.
Whether designing or
teaching, we live in a period which is trying to keep ahead of time,
dominated by high-strung students, teachers in a hurry, with careers
compressed into four years, with far too many students per class to
correctly guide their work, with four-month courses in a discipline
which needs time to mature... in the eyes of the teacher, each student
is a world and a question mark which he is barely able to articulate in
the brief span of an academic year.
It is not easy. I
often wonder if this type of designers, teachers, communicators,
critics, computer buffs, detectives, psychologists, advocates that we,
teachers, are in an almost schizophrenic way (in this case, of graphic
design), may not be the result of something purely vocational rather
than the outcome of the application of a series of studies on academic
theory and professional practice.
All good teachers, in
any area whatsoever, design as they teach, because teaching is
synonymous with communication. Nevertheless, we not only program the
process of learning. In design we carry out veritable mental gymnastics
to resolve the students varied assignments, which result, in turn, in
the ongoing improvement of our own professional caliber.
Teaching-designing
can be a very rewarding task, even when we know that only a few of our
students will have learned the basic mechanisms which will help them to
think design in the best manner possible throughout their professional
life.
Yet there will always be teachers (and students) to remember
Being
an optimist is the best solution, because after all we do not want
design to develop in the computer design academies which have sprouted
up everywhere under the electronic flood. We should also accept the
fact that the pure craft of the designer no longer exists and
reconstruct the correct concept on the basis of what we actually have
in our higher institutes of learning, polytechnic centres or schools of
architecture or fine arts. When all is said and done, it should be
remembered that there have always been good teachers and good students,
in spite of the eternally adverse circumstances in any period of
history.
Undoubtedly, we all recall a few select
teachers and professors whom we thank inwardly and outwardly for their
teaching. Regardless of theories, ideologies, philosophies,
methodologies and many other ies , what is essential is the actual
person and not the method used to teach, the study program involved, or
the grade obtained. It is a special possibly inexplicable personal
quality of the teacher, perhaps beyond all human logic. It is something
which transcends the limits of a verbal explanation. They have been and
are teachers who had and have time for their students. In whom all
students awakened and awaken a curiosity about them as persons and as
scholars of their academic subject, a curiosity which tends to be
reciprocal.
Who admitted and admit their doubts and are
proud to have their students question them. We preserve their essence,
an almost omnipresent recollection, throughout our professional career.
The practice of teaching was and is inherent to them, as natural as
placing one foot before the other when walking. They neither presumed
nor presume to teach, knowing that what is fundamental is that the
student should desire to learn. They do not believe they are
indispensable, they teach what they know and, even more important, they
teach what they are .
References
Some of the reference material which has inspired these reflections:
Bonsiepe, G. Las siete columnas del diseno (The seven pillars of design). Mexico, UAM, 1993.
Chaves,
N. Ensenar a disenar o aprender a comunicar (Teaching design or
learning to communicate). tipoGrafica (43): 18-23, 2000
Dinham, S.
La ensenanza del diseno: el diseno de la ensenanza (Teaching design:
the design of teaching). Temes de Disseny (6): 131-150, 1991.
Satue, E. Talento, curiosidad y pasion (Talent, curiosity and passion). Experimenta (6): 61-63, 1994.
Spiekermann, E. Information design: What is it? Who needs it? 1995.
Vazquez
Montalban, M. Buscando la inutilidad desesperadamente (Desperately
seeking uselessness). Temes de Disseny (5): 138-140, 1991.
For more information, contact:
Silvina Rodriguez
Fontanadiseno
Viamonte 454, piso 7, of. 14
C1053ABJ Buenos Aires
Argentina
E:
W: www.fontana-d.com
About this article
The following article is reprinted from Fontanadiseno, with permission.
About Silvina Rodriguez
Graduated in 1985 and was awarded a Doctorate in Fine Arts (Graphic Design) in 1995. She has participated in design teams for a number of institutions such as the DZ-Centro de Diseno de la Diputacion Foral de Bizkaia, Metro Bilbao and the Bayonne IUT. Since 1987 she has been teaching methodology, Graphic Design projects and doctor s programs in the School of Fine Arts of the Basque University. She has participated in European Union programmers such as Lingua and Erasmus, as well as in interactive design research projects
About Fontanadiseno
Fontanadiseno has been editing tpG since 1987. It is the only
independent publication focused on typography and design entirely
produced in Argentina. Part of the thinking behind the magazine is the
dissemination of knowledge and ideas to all those connected with the
disciplines of communication. tpG is now an international forum of
design debate and its advisory comitee gathers the most remarkable
specialists around the world.