Design education in the post-digital age

Design Management Journal, Summer 2002 by Maeda, John

Manipulation refers to the day-to-day application of a known visual or tactile vocabulary of expression-what we usually refer to as "design.' Once mastered, pedestrian design activity loses its challenge, and sometimes the only thing that makes it interesting is the attempt to make it perfect. Each detail must be executed flawlessly, to a degree that no average human can possibly discern. Examples of this mentality include fanatics that kern type to 0.01-point accuracy or demand that their technician print a specific, elusive color at the cost of endless press checks. This quality of painstaking attention to detail is recognized as a "craft" approach.

The craft approach often fails to revolutionize the realm of expression, but succeeds in refinement and appreciation for the theoretically best possible outcomes. However, truly revolutionary developments require devoting oneself to expanding the realm of possibilities-once a common pursuit among artists. The way this would work is that the artist's discovery of new elements would influence lay culture and, along with it, those craftsmen who manipulate and refine to perfection. Eventually, another artist would find a way to expand the discovery, and thus allow the cycle to continue. (This explains, by the way, why design was once referred to as "applied art.") Prior to digital media, this ecology was preserved because the media were physitally manipulated by virtue of being situated in the physical world. Paper, printing press, vacuum mold, plastic, and day are all things that can be felt with the hands and understood through direct experience. Digital systems, on the other hand, have no physical form beyond the precarious indirect link served by the keyboard and the mouse. Thus, the qualities of digital media are impossible to discern from solely physical experiences.

What this means is that having a visceral understanding of digital media requires experiences that are learned through understanding computer science, which is not a part of the normal repertoire of the artist graduating from a finearts program. This leaves the artist devoid of the tools necessary to expand his or her vocabulary of expression. The result is that, on the one hand, the arts are at a standstill in the digital realm; but on the other hand, we see a trend in which tools developed for the digital-design arena are gaining cachet in the digital arts. It's an odd reversal of the cycle that once defined design as applied arts, but now seems to be moving again-toward "applied design?"

In any case, the solution does not lie in artists or designers pursuing degrees in computer science. What is required is revolutionizing the education process for creative individuals, which can challenge all their activities with digital and nondigital in a manner that can redefine and realign technological developments to match more closely true humanistic needs.

Digital media education

In the past decade, I often heard directors at Web companies refer to their "techie" staffs and their "creative" staffs. Often each side disliked the other, and I would hear of the cultural differences that separated them, ranging from style of dress to preferences in flavors of ice cream. I didn't think much of this until my students began to look for jobs and were forced to choose either the techie or the creative career path-never both at the same time. Until recently, I thought that these distinctions had disappeared. But last month, I received an e-mail from a British student proclaiming that she is