As I’ve written previously in Merge, the issue of how design educators address entrepreneurship is a real puzzle. Aside from the requisite “professional practice” course that most designers endure, there is little-to-no discussion of the core elements of building a business. We’re seeing some truly innovative graduate-level programs emerging especially in the industrial design area, such as the much-heralded Stanford D School and lower profile entries, like the University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art & Planning Program, and California College of the Arts. The Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts is one of the only programs I’ve found that has roots in communication design.
At the undergraduate level, the picture is even more bleak. With the exception of bright spots like the University of Illinois Chicago, I’m not seeing a whole lot of emphasis on innovative business thinking in communication design programs (please, tell me if I’m missing something obvious). One encouraging sign is the increasing number of programs that offer collaborative programs either within a school or between schools, like the split major that a student in the Washington University in St. Louis School of Art can achieve with the WU Olin School of Business.
There was a recent flurry of Twitter activity around a blog post by Ryan Jacoby, a business designer and one of the leaders of the IDEO New York studio, who has created an experimental curriculum for an advanced degree in Business Design. It seems to be built on the framework of an MBA curriculum, but implemented through the lens of design thinking. It’s a very fresh approach infused with a surprisingly playful attitude with courses like Organizational Design and Culture (Charts & Farts). Check out the extensive commentary on Ryan’s post, which really extends the conversation nicely.
Here’s a helpful reference from BusinessWeek of top D-Schools (which seems to have a mostly industrial design focus).
This is a significant challenge for communication design programs. The successful designer of 2015 and beyond will not be able to rely solely on her ability to help solve her client’s creative or strategic problems. The landscape for designers will be dramatically changed by then and the design success stories will be about designers bringing innovative products to market. Thus far, however, there simply aren’t enough places for designers to learn the skills that will prepare us for this reality.
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June 14, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Gunnar Swanson
Doug,
I’m never sure how to respond to things like this. I suspect that I agree with you but it’s really hard to see from a distance who is doing things right. Buzzwords on websites don’t seem to be a particularly good measure.
It all reminds me of an educators’ discussion at an AIGA conference where someone gave an impassioned plea for teaching graphic design students about design business and especially about business strategy. The response from the group was, essentially, “What class do we give up in order to teach that class?” My reaction was that I was confused by the whole discussion since I didn’t ha any idea how I would teach graphic design and not include something about design business and a lot about business strategy. Maybe that’s the advantage of being largely self trained as a designer so I’d never dealt with graphic design except as business strategy.
That said, I wonder just how much “emphasis on innovative business thinking” you can put into an undergraduate design program before you start losing something in the area of learning to design (in the narrow sense of the term.)
June 16, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Doug Powell
Gunnar,
Thanks for reading, and for the thoughtful contribution. I think I was at the same conference you referenced in your comment.
Basically, I agree with you. The underlying point of this post (and most of my posts related to design education) is to highlight the complexity of the issue. “What class do we give up in order to teach that class?” is exactly the problem…especially at the undergrad level. I think teachers like you who are able to present the content embedded within in a broader context of strategic thinking and business savvy (without really calling it that) are doing a great service to their students. Ultimately, I think some of the cross-pollination between academic disciplines begins to offer an alternative way to build on the core foundational design curricula (but that’s certainly not an easy fix).