D-School Futures: SAIC's Lisa Norton on the 'Thinking-Making' Approach to Design Education, and Why Her Students Must Learn to Befriend Failure
Posted on core77 | 16 Sep 2014
Lisa Norton, director of Designed Objects within the Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects (AIADO) Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
How different is industrial design education today than it was ten years ago?
Will it look very different ten years from now?
Industrial design education today is vastly different with respect to technology, manufacturing, distribution and the roles of designers within changing and expanding markets for their skills and offerings. Due to the exponentially increasing speed of the diffusion of innovation and the fact that design touches all sectors, I think it's safe to say that both design education and design practice will experience decisive shifts generated from within and outside of academia.
What would you say to a prospective student who worries about the relevance of an ID education in an increasingly digital world?
Industrial design practice and pedagogy are always changing in order to keep pace with emerging digital tools and new possibilities. Many leading programs in industrial design have long ceased making a distinction between digital and analog approaches to design education. Digital and analog methods are complementary avenues along a continuum of technological developments. Given the wide range of research, ideation and production choices available to designers today, it is no longer possible to make meaningful distinctions between these terms.
What sets Designed Objects apart from ID programs at other schools?
At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, our BFA, MFA and Master of Design in Designed Objects is distinctive because of our approach and core institutional value of 'thinking-making,' which enriches our program by virtue of full immersion in thinking through processes, through materials and through the body. At minimum, we give our students the theories, the methods and the practices essential for cutting-edge industrial design today. Often, our students want to take the refinements much further in the realm of thinking with materials and within time and space. This approach is reflected in the name of our program: 'Designed Objects' designates an approach to seeing, thinking, designing and making that builds upon, but is not limited to, the practices of industrial design.
What's the job market like for recent graduates of your program? Is now a good time to embark on an ID career?
The role of the designer is extremely important in our world today, more important than ever before. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago's department of Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects (AIADO) attracts very independent-minded and entrepreneurial students whose goals tend to involve unconventional roles and approaches to objects, products, systems and services. As a result, many alumni of our BFA, MFA and MDDO programs have launched their own ventures, partnerships and projects. Due to the success of our special projects and industry partner projects, a number of students have been successful in positioning themselves out of school and into opportunities with design and marketing firms around the world. Still others have chosen to work for bigger brands and more mainstream design and technology firms and have made that transition successfully even in recession times.
If you had to give just one piece of advice to an incoming student in your program, what would it be?
If I were to give a student just one piece of advice upon entering our program, it would be to 'befriend failure.' In K–12 as well as in higher education in the United States, we have educational norms and structures that encourage students to become skilled in giving correct answers as opposed to asking good questions. These habits extend to art and design education and there is a vigorous debate right now about these educational paradigms, one of which is more linear and convergent, and the other of which is more nonlinear and divergent. When it comes to really fostering the creative imagination and reinforcing native creative instincts, the more divergent approach is widely understood as advantageous. We all need both capacities, of course, but it's very important for the student of design to understand that they have more than likely been conditioned to solve for the right answer, for 'successful' results. This results/outcome orientation tends to discourage creative breakthroughs. Paradoxically, if we can cultivate a mindset of befriending failure, and perhaps even courting it, we can peel away some of our educational conditioning and be more open to fresh ideas when they arise.
(Core 77) published the last installment of our D-School Futures series, in which we interviewed the chairs of 11 leading industrial design programs about the evolution of ID education. Along the way, we gleaned quite a few insights into what it's like to be an ID student today, how schools are reacting to rapid changes in the industry, and what all of this means for incoming students and recent graduates. For those of you who haven't had time to read the full series – or who just love a good listicle – here's our shortlist of five essential takeaways.
1. Now Is a Really Good Time to Launch a Design Career
OK, so you would expect the chairs of design programs to be bullish about the profession; they couldn't very well tell us that now is a crummy time to get a degree from one of their programs. Even so, our interviewees gave us the distinct impression that now actually is a really good time to be getting into industrial design, or any design field for that matter. With the economy looking increasingly healthy, design firms are hiring new graduates at a steady clip – and, more importantly, businesses of all stripes are continuing to recognize the importance of design to their bottom lines.
OK, so you would expect the chairs of design programs to be bullish about the profession; they couldn't very well tell us that now is a crummy time to get a degree from one of their programs. Even so, our interviewees gave us the distinct impression that now actually is a really good time to be getting into industrial design, or any design field for that matter. With the economy looking increasingly healthy, design firms are hiring new graduates at a steady clip – and, more importantly, businesses of all stripes are continuing to recognize the importance of design to their bottom lines.
2. Designing Physical Stuff Is Not Becoming Less Important—If Anything, the Opposite Is True
Worried that designers of actual, physical stuff are going to become obsolete in the coming decades, as more and more of our daily tasks are handled by digital tools? Don't be. As several of our interviewees noted, physical objects are not going away anytime soon – and, besides, as digital tools become more advanced, people will expect richer and more nuanced experiences in ye olde three-dimensional world. 'While our tools and experiences are moving toward digital interactions, there will always be physical, visual or multi-sensorial manifestations that are part of the input and output of those interactions,' Art Center's Karen Hofmann told us. 'Design will be the differentiator in how successful or meaningful those product experiences will be.'
Worried that designers of actual, physical stuff are going to become obsolete in the coming decades, as more and more of our daily tasks are handled by digital tools? Don't be. As several of our interviewees noted, physical objects are not going away anytime soon – and, besides, as digital tools become more advanced, people will expect richer and more nuanced experiences in ye olde three-dimensional world. 'While our tools and experiences are moving toward digital interactions, there will always be physical, visual or multi-sensorial manifestations that are part of the input and output of those interactions,' Art Center's Karen Hofmann told us. 'Design will be the differentiator in how successful or meaningful those product experiences will be.'
3. The Industrial Design Curriculum Is Expanding at a Terrifying Rate
The good news is that design's reach is expanding; the bad news is that the skills designers need to be competitive are also expanding, to the point where it's really difficult for a single program to teach the core ID skills plus all of the other stuff that is now relevant to the profession, from coding and UX design to global business savvy. As Carnegie Mellon's Wayne Chung puts it, 'ID education today is requiring us to shove ten pounds into a five-pound bag.' This places an added burden on educators, but it also, of course, puts more responsibility on students' shoulders – which bring us to our next point . . .
The good news is that design's reach is expanding; the bad news is that the skills designers need to be competitive are also expanding, to the point where it's really difficult for a single program to teach the core ID skills plus all of the other stuff that is now relevant to the profession, from coding and UX design to global business savvy. As Carnegie Mellon's Wayne Chung puts it, 'ID education today is requiring us to shove ten pounds into a five-pound bag.' This places an added burden on educators, but it also, of course, puts more responsibility on students' shoulders – which bring us to our next point . . .
4. Budding Designers Need to Be Adaptable, Improvisational, Entrepreneurial and Comfortable with Failure
Sure, some ID graduates will go straight to a steady gig at a design firm and enjoy well-defined job roles thereafter. But that career track is becoming increasingly less common, and our interviewees stressed that designers-in-training need to prepare themselves for a pretty unpredictable ride. (The University of Cincinnati's Craig Vogel likens today's design careers to 'improvisational jazz.') To be successful over the long haul, young designers must learn to sell their ideas to a non-design audience, work effectively on a variety of teams – and quite possibly launch their own entrepreneurial ventures. Oh, and they should get used to failure—both because it's inevitable and because, asSAIC's Lisa Norton suggested, getting students to "befriend failure" can encourage creative breakthroughs.
Sure, some ID graduates will go straight to a steady gig at a design firm and enjoy well-defined job roles thereafter. But that career track is becoming increasingly less common, and our interviewees stressed that designers-in-training need to prepare themselves for a pretty unpredictable ride. (The University of Cincinnati's Craig Vogel likens today's design careers to 'improvisational jazz.') To be successful over the long haul, young designers must learn to sell their ideas to a non-design audience, work effectively on a variety of teams – and quite possibly launch their own entrepreneurial ventures. Oh, and they should get used to failure—both because it's inevitable and because, asSAIC's Lisa Norton suggested, getting students to "befriend failure" can encourage creative breakthroughs.
5. With Great Potential Comes Great Responsibility
Overall, these 11 interviews make design seem like a pretty awesome profession with huge potential for growth – and that's true. But design also raises some uncomfortable issues that need to be seriously confronted by anyone entering the profession. Namely, we are living in a world in which making more stuff – even very nicely designed stuff – is quite plainly speeding us along the road to planetary ruin. Young designers in particular need to set their sights higher, and think about how the profession can move toward designing solutions to our most vexing problems. As SVA's Allan Chochinov puts it, 'We believe that design has transformed the world, but that the world is now demanding the transformation of designers – from generators of consumptive demand to creators of real and shared value.'
Overall, these 11 interviews make design seem like a pretty awesome profession with huge potential for growth – and that's true. But design also raises some uncomfortable issues that need to be seriously confronted by anyone entering the profession. Namely, we are living in a world in which making more stuff – even very nicely designed stuff – is quite plainly speeding us along the road to planetary ruin. Young designers in particular need to set their sights higher, and think about how the profession can move toward designing solutions to our most vexing problems. As SVA's Allan Chochinov puts it, 'We believe that design has transformed the world, but that the world is now demanding the transformation of designers – from generators of consumptive demand to creators of real and shared value.'