Generating Design with Value: Educating the Designer of the 21st Century

‘Modern design education,’ explains Michael Bierut of Pentagram, ‘is essentially value-free: every problem has a purely visual solution that exists outside any cultural context’ (Bierut, 2012). Graphic Design education is often structured around two common themes: the introduction of technological skill sets for production and the broad stylistic skills needed for a solid portfolio of work. These two streams, whilst essential in the education of a designer, often ignore the element of wider design thinking skills that are the key to the development of a successful design practitioner. Creative problem solving has always been the focus of design schools, however this method is often narrowly applied to the confines of a specific outcome: the design of a product, packaging, or logo-type to suit a particular client or style. Design Thinking, by contrast, is a methodology that expands the creative thinking process beyond the traditional constraints and challenges the designer to shift their thinking from the specific problem to the wider task at hand. ‘The problems that challenged designers in the twentieth century – crafting a new object, creating a new logo are simply not the problems that will define the twenty-first,’ explains Design Thinking guru Tim Brown (2009, p.37). In the recently revised Bachelor of Graphic Design at the University of Canberra, our projects are designed around creating value in the evolving social landscape of Australia, equipping students with the knowledge and foresight to solve current and emerging design problems. This paper will outline the techniques and projects utilized in the program at UC to facilitate design thinking.