Last year D&AD showcased four inspirational education projects at our Student Awards. They looked at new ways of working and profiled examples of great collaboration between industry and education. You can watch the first film about the Thoughtful Six here.
Six
months on, we asked them to talk about their experiences. One of the lead tutors and
D&AD University Network member James Corazzo from Stockport College talks
about it:
The Thoughtful Six Project, in
simple terms, turned the idea of the work placement on its head – rather than
the students trying to find a work placement in lots of different design
agencies, Thoughtful design
agency did a placement in Stockport College.
The genesis of the project
came from thinking about how little design educators and design professionals
actually talk to each other and how when we do, we often fail to get beyond the
same old clichés and finger pointing. This has to change. The design industry
desperately needs a better understanding of design education and design
education desperately needs a better understanding of the design industry.
We can’t claim to have nailed
the whole understanding thing but by moving a design agency into the department
it created an opportunity to start a dialogue. Whether it was while passing in
a corridor or towards the end of the day, we had lots of conversations that ranged,
as good ones do, all over the place - but they always came back to the students,
design, and design education. However, unlike many discussions I have experienced with design
professionals never once did a sentence
begin “you should be doing this…”.
Perhaps, because we had the time
and the opportunity to get to understand the complexities of each other’s
situations we started to recognise the similarities, not the differences; we
are all in the business of dealing with, or helping people deal with, an
increasingly complex and uncertain world.
If I had to summarise what
the six students that worked with Thoughtful got from the project – a fine
looking portfolio, a CV enhancing placement, knowing how to talk to people, a
good story and a network of contacts aside – ultimately it was the sustained
insight into dealing and coping with uncertainty.
Having Thoughtful live and
work in the college for the last 12 months has also had an enormous impact
beyond the six students and not in the ways we might have anticipated. The
dialogue has provoked us to reconfigure what we do, perhaps surprisingly, we
are moving away from explicitly industry focused projects towards broader approaches
that focus on cultivating individuals whose creative thinking is only one
aspect alongside resourcefulness and resilience. It has also prompted the idea
of developing a more agile and responsive curriculum – a challenge within an
institutional framework.
And its not just been one
way, Thoughtful have changed too; “we can see how tutors are able to stand
shoulder to shoulder with the soldiers in the trenches as well view the battle
from the top of the hill. This gives good tutors a unique and expansive view of
the world and how design and their students fit into that world.”
We’re involved with the University Network because we
think it’s uniquely placed to enable and encourage institutions to find innovative
ways to configure, extend and deepen their relationships with design
professionals, not because we should be mirroring industry, but because good
dialogue will create a richer ecology. D&AD can move the debate on by
creating constructive forums and opportunities to draw insightful industry voices
into a sustained collaboration with educators.
But it's not just design
educators and design professionals that should be yakking more, it needs to
happen between institutions, more sharing, more talking. Bring on the real
network.
Thoughtful are an ideas
agency for the 21st century whose clients include Tate, British
Council, howies, innocent and Royal Mail. James Corazzo is a Lecturer on the
BA(Hons) Graphic Design course at Stockport College. If you would like to know
more about the project James would be very happy to hear from you. Please comment or ask questions below.
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