D&AD Blog

Are you taking the diss?

Steve Price is founder of Plan-B Studio and writer of the www.designweak.com blog. Having worked both as a designer/creative director and a tutor, he has been inspired to discuss the merits of writing a dissertation for a bachelor's degree. Both he and D&AD are interested to hear your thoughts!

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‘Does MTV design or create Youth Culture?’... ‘Visualising Boundaries: Between Architecture and Design’. You’ve not read these titles? Are they not on your Amazon wishlist? No? Really? That’s because these are the titles of my dissertations. The first for my Bachelors, the second my Masters. The former I believe could be completely scrapped. Not the contextual part, but the ten-thousand-word-dissertation part.

Why? Simple. No-one has ever asked about or been bothered to listen to me recounting my dissertation topic even with an invitation to do so. Not one. It is high-time we revised this part of a BA degree.

‘Art schools prompt you to try and go in to depth about your ideas and you end up writing documents after documents. It makes you feel like that is how the real world exists, and actually it’s not true in all cases. Often you might be working with television companies who manage to present an idea for a ten programme series, with a few million pounds budget, on a single sheet of A4. It’s about being able to articulate an idea as simply as possible.’
Nicolas Roope, Creative Founder at Poke interviewed by Core77

The design education comes in for harsh criticism amongst myself and many of my peers. The same problems are still being met - basic, and fundamental skills aren’t present in many graduates; as they weren’t when I graduated. Helping to produce designers that can think conceptually is important, but it is now only one portion of a very big pie that all too often comes out half baked (sorry I used to be a chef).

I never understood the need for writing a dissertation. Surely I wouldn’t have made it through to the interview if I wasn’t able to read or write? Arguably, if I had, I should be welcomed and embraced for having the ability to surf through life without those basic communication requirements. So if not to test your language and grammar - what is the use of a dissertation today?

It is an annual grind for all concerned - the students who spend months hibernating the whole process under a layer of procrastination and hangovers. Teachers who are burdened with the task of tutoring and modulating them throughout the process. What a waste of time and resource. Not to mention a complete waste of materials. In the final year of my BA there were some ninety-six students. Each student was forced to submit two, hardback bound copies of their dissertation (on my MA at Central Saint Martins, five copies!). Working on the basis that each dissertation was sixty pages long, that’s 11,520 sheets of A4
alone!

I have an idea. Rather than a lengthy dissertation what about five reviews/commentaries on the chosen topics that interest each individual student; these could be reviews of books, web sites, technology, projects by agencies, interviews... Minimum of 500 words each. These could be posted on their own blogs, or submitted as PDFs on Slideshare for all to see and read. The emphasis is to help them simplify their message. To refine their skills as communicators.

These topics would be set between tutor and student at the start of each semester. Each student would then present their findings/topic to an audience. Perhaps in varying formats; Pecha Kucha, or presented along side only the use of images, or sound, or words? Each format should set to test and challenge how the student deals with differing formats and audiences. Heckling encouraged.

Or, as part of New Blood, create a design graduate summit whereby the best presentations/essays get to present their ideas and findings to the people that might want to employ them.

The design education has to evolve and right now it doesn’t appear to be doing so at the same pace of the industry. Graduates are already under increasing pressure to perform and do so almost immediately. Without giving them the necessary time to learn practical skills I’m afraid that their efforts will be as useful as their dissertations which will sit dormant on their book shelf, just like mine.

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Sir Ken Robinson spoke at the Cumulus conference in London earlier this year and also commented on this topic. His argument was if we are looking for a nation of creative communicators, why do we ask creative graduates to present in a form that they are not expert in (ie long-form essay writing) as opposed to using the visual methods and craft which they have been developing on in their degree. If you would like to hear more and what Sir Ken has to say on this issue, please have a look at his TED talk on education and creativity. 

Things I've Learnt

This is the first in a series where creatives share their experiences, talk about what path they took into the industry and what things they wished someone had told them when they were starting out. Shaun Bowen, Creative Partner from B&B Studio is first up:

Your first job is your next college.

See your first role as your apprenticeship and your opportunity to soak up as much knowledge from those around you as you can. Keep your head up and take an interest in what the other designers are doing around you. Too many graduates leave college and think they know it all.

It’s incredibly important to understand who you will be learning from. I was lucky to learn from Mary Lewis at Lewis Moberly and a fantastic team of designers that were working with her at the time. It made me the type of designer I am now. It made me understand the importance of a great idea but also how important it is to make it look good. It was a time when computers were still a novelty and crafting of type and image was given so much more emphasis. I feel fortunate that I caught the end of such a wonderful era but this is your era, and you should apply the same principle and learn all you can. 

Designers all think differently.

One of the great things about my first job was the difference in the design team.  We were all from different backgrounds and many from different parts of the world, each with their own approaches to finding a solution to the design problem. Presentations are far more successful if several designers have had an opportunity to think about the brief and then work collaboratively to solve it. 

Design agencies are not all the same.

Before I got a permanent job I gained experience from design placements. As well as the obvious benefit of seeing what it’s really like after college, I was amazed how different culturally the agencies were. You can only truly understand an agency once you’ve worked there, but finding somewhere you fit is an important factor in how long you will stay. Building a team of talented people that all work well together is what makes an exciting studio and the outcome is great design. 

Clients don’t always know what they are talking about.

Understanding what a client really wants comes with experience. Sometimes clients say one thing but actually mean something else. Making sure you ask the right questions helps. As a designer you can bring an objective view to solving their problem, but you need to understand the problem first.

Sometimes clients do know what they are talking about.

Being able to listen is a big part of being a designer. Remember that the client is immersed in their brand and its category. This insight can be a very helpful and often an essential part of you understanding their brief.

Work hard.

You won’t succeed unless you work hard. But if you love your work it makes it so much easier. If you don’t love it, it means you’re doing something wrong. 

Be nice.

A design studio can at times be a stressful place, but there really is no excuse for not treating all those around you with respect.

Simplicity is a powerful thing.

 

TALK TALK – A postscript to the Thoughtful Six Project

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.

Storm Thorgerson: Why do we become designers?

Legendary graphic designer, Storm Thorgerson spoke at Xchange yesterday.  Here's his theory about what motivates designers.

Storm Thorgerson from D&AD on Vimeo.

Watch all of last year's Xchange speakers at xchange08.dandad.org

Paul Hazel on Xchange

Paul Hazel from Swansea Institute, one of the tutor attendees of Xchange, has blogged all about it here.