Australian INfront

1. By zannstpierre on 19th May 2010 @ 1.27 PM

Great talk Jen!

During my tertiary studies I attended two universities, JCU in Townsville and QUT in Brisbane.

Both of them had their pros and cons like most things in life. However, I still feel I learnt over and above what uni taught me about the job I do today in the first 6 months of fulltime employment.

I doubt there will ever be a course/school which can teach the real life lesson you learn when you enter the work force.

Saying that, I wish I had more of a chance to do work placement in design/development during my course. Much like the final years for medical students where they do a large term of field placement.

2. By Luke on 19th May 2010 @ 3.36 PM

Nice discussion starter Jen, I've studied at two university. University of Western Sydney (UWS) and the Köln International School of Design (KISD), in Germany.

I found a massive difference between the two, I found that UWS taught design in the same way they teach engineering, maths or medicine, with classes, tutorials, lectures, readings. Each class and each semester separate from one another. It was only in final year that we had anything that resembled a real design studio experience, even then we still had classes not too different to those in primary school.

KISD was completely different, it is a groundbreaking design education model created by the school, although it's still moving and evolving it has been adopted and mimicked by numerous design schools across Europe. Entry is gained via an interview. There are no classes, instead there is projects, some are one day a week, others are full time 9-5 for a full year. You choose what you wish to study in all kinds of subjects from treehouse design, to design research, entertainment, interior design to one off guest lecturers and short term software skill workshops as well as all students being required to pick projects to actually run the administration of the school, like enrollments or run the Cafe. Almost every creative field is catered for including some you wouldn't expect, like business projects or one were some students turned the basement in a restaurant and ran it for two weeks. Every Friday is presentation day where one project group shows their work to whole school, there is usually a couple guest lecturers and the beer flows, eventually the college turns into a bar and Friday night at school become a party.

Above all that, the projects are filled with all year levels and people from all creative disciplines, much like a real studio. The whole school runs as a real studio, many of the briefs are real, almost all of the long term projects have commercial partners, with many small term ones encouraging you to find a client or sponsorship. The whole education model was incredible and showed me what design education could be like if a school is willing to take the risk.

3. By paulducco on 19th May 2010 @ 4.34 PM

KISD sounds awesome Luke, would love to hear more about it, and your experience there.

4. By lorena on 19th May 2010 @ 8.15 PM

I'm coming in from a different perspective. I've spent a fair amount of time studying ( 7 years studying Primary Education/ Psychology/ IT/ Design/ Secondary Education) and teaching (primary/ highschool). The reality is that you will never be prepared for life in the workforce straight out of university - that's all part of the beauty of learning on the job. Same as teaching. Most high school teachers know jack shit about their subject area (I spent 18 months studying IT to receive a Food Technology/ Metal/ Woodwork class load). I remember coming out of an intense (Computing - they taught us LOGO, PASCAL and C) Technology course only to be given a woodwork class and not even knowing how to handle a pedestal drill let alone a circular saw. Nice work Department of Education. Fortunately I didn't kill anyone.
I'm interested in design education at a fundamental level. Teaching kids about process and basic communication skills (drawing anyone?). At a professional level, aside from technical skills they are the skills that matter the most. Having someone who knows how to process a series of instructions and then come back and communicate their achievements is a big ask from most 17 year olds. Those skills need to be taught not just in optional subjects but across the board.
The Department of Education has made some effort. Technology is now mandatory in year 7 and 8 in NSW. Those mickey mouse subjects you loved (woodwork, metal, technical drawing, textiles, cooking, agriculture, graphic design. multimedia,computing, etc) are all lumped into a unit framework. So basically, as a year 7/8 student you receive 90 minutes of 'Technology' a week based on the time-frame and skillset that the teachers at the school you happen to be lucky enough to be enrolled in have.
I was lucky enough to work at a great school with innovative teachers who rotatated 6 units (different subject areas) across 2 years so that students had the opportunity to experience as many subject levels as possible. To be honest I think this school was in the minority as most of this work depends on hard working innovative teachers and the subjects that they have experience in (or are willing) to teach.
What was your experience?
Do you think high school adequately prepared you to make an appropriate career decision?
What else could school teachers be doing to prepare their design orientated students for a professional career?

5. By joshua on 19th May 2010 @ 10.49 PM

I'm at UWS in my 4th year doing an Honours project with a basis in design education. Fundamentally i think any enriching design education experience (or any educational experience for that matter) needs to start with the student. You can blame the course work, the teachers, the resources or the insituation's culture- but at the end of the day, if your not engaging with what you've got to work with- if your not pushing expectations for yourself, then little else matters. Therefore I'd suggest the only quality that defines a good design student, is one that wants to learn and better themselves.

Lorena: I did Design Technology at school. Can't say I loved it, it didn't influence my decision to do design degree- which is funny now that i reflect on it. High school was the wrong kind of dynamic for me, too much hand feeding. I think having an strong awareness of design culture is inspiring for designers of all levels and would help your students understand what they can get away with, or where they can fit in on the full spectrum of design. If your students could start a design course with 5 favourite Australian design studios- they'd be two years head of most design students. In my opinion.

Good topic.

6. By peteshand on 19th May 2010 @ 11.04 PM

I studied Multimedia Design at Swinburne here in Melbourne and I have to say I was a little underwhelmed with the course. While there were a number of good lecturers there were also those that did little to inspire the students.

This was probably also due to a lack of enthusiasm from most of the students who treated it more as a burden than an opportunity to learn more and develop their skills. Haha, I seem really jaded.

I think I was just expecting a lot more. And by a lot more I mean a course that would challenge me and teach me new things etc. Instead it felt more like paying someone to read out a brief and look up examples on the net.

I'm not too fussed about the whole ENTER score thing, people can always go to tafe which is just as good (from what I can gather). The ENTER score just separates the people who get off their ass and do work from those who like the idea of design but tend to just sit and watch funny youtube clips every class until the end of semester when they spit something out the night before.

I learned a lot more from books and the internet than my 4 years at uni.

7. By MLK14 on 20th May 2010 @ 3.47 AM

It's peculiar to think that design courses in this country are expanding but will each student be catered for a job? In the States, design graduates are already having the most difficult time to secure a full-time position let alone afford their brownhouse rents.

My personal experience that I have come to realise is actually really think whether or not design education should be undertaken with swiftness. Having had spoken to some of the industry designers that we know very well of, it's really about the portfolio of work, whether it is tailored to the needs of that business and if your skills match the ethos of the studio. It's just not that simple that the expectation of undertaking a design degree, going to classes at whichever university or college will be the gold ticket to a job. The harsh reality of what is not the big picture at these institutions is you go through these project phases, your work is then scrunitised by tutors and your marked against a numerical number.

You also really have to contend with if you stand any better when you might be presenting the same folio of work of the same briefs set out ubiquitously for every other person. With great honesty, I think it would be unwise to take up design studies automatically. Spend time making mistakes, failures and doing experiments, try-outs at home, speak to real people, network with them, showcase what your doing and build from there. Then you will realise that hey: just because I got a portfolio doesn't mean it's that simple. Design is also a business; graphic designers are not the best designers. You work with photographers, writers, set-designers; the real design world isn't so academic; your relied upon your best skills so iron them in an environment that you feel creatively unbridled.

8. By MLK14 on 20th May 2010 @ 4.02 AM

I would also like to further add that some of these design institutions seemingly have no idea how the real world and the industry works on a day to day basis. I keep in touch with friends doing their 4 year coursework and hearing things such as making your own personal identity and making a university marketed magazine. Are those kinds of projects the breadwinners and your best keepsake? What Luke (from above) had described is exactly like that Swedish school HyperIsland where there are no academic type classes but set time projectwork. It feels much more pragmatic yet your build your skills in real-time.

9. By Looney on 20th May 2010 @ 10.23 AM

how hard is it to set briefs?

if this is true and it's the same old personal id and uni newsletters thing need a kick up the proverbial

my college, hornsey art college in london set multi-leveled briefs

you had 3 or 4 to choose from, your medium was up to you, 3d, animation, print, photography, to name a few

one in the last year i vaguely remember was:

id for glasshouse cafe
advertising for brooke employment agency
convey greed in any medium
id investigation on bovis building company with critiques
illustrate how a life form from another world would see us using a completely different sense
create, brand and make a box of chocolates

if we didn't like any of them we were encouraged to think one up and present it

we were given a month to do it

we had the resources of the college to use and had to take the initiative to hunt out tutors (most of who were part time and worked either in the industry or were fine artists

college should be a time to experiment, too much pragmatic bollox for my taste, you got the rest of your working life to get fed up with it - see thread 'i hate my job'

i know some will come on and say colleges should train for the industry, my gripe is that is not and should never be the only priority

then again i didn't have to pay so this would make a difference, another of my gripes

griping away here, sorry

10. By Jen_Melb on 21st May 2010 @ 10.19 AM

Thanks so much for your contributions so far everyone. The key points resonating from all that has been said above seem to be:

*Students should have greater ability to tackle real-world briefs whilst at Uni/TAFE (love the examples of KISD and Hyper Island in particular - how innovative and inspiring)

*More experimentation should be allowed in the contexts of tertiary design courses - not all content should be so pragmatic

*Practical experience should be introduced at a greater level throughout an individuals design education

*Uni/TAFE is handy but is by no means the be-all and end-all

In regards to Australian institutions, it seems some are really chasing their tail. On the contrary, do you think any universities, TAFE colleges or privately run institutions are doing a particularly good job? If so, what is it that they are doing?

11. By aistrope on 21st May 2010 @ 10.34 AM

I've recently read that there are plans to bring Hyper Island to Sydney very soon...

12. By dylan on 21st May 2010 @ 1.08 PM

interesting no one mentions research, or education at phd level
with the shift in universities towards more post graduate programs and funding based more on research outcome - it might be that a 3 year batchelors plus 2 years masters might become the norm, even in fields like design.

13. By Scarlett on 21st May 2010 @ 7.09 PM

I have been out of school eight years now and its just now I decided to go apply for a degree. Back when I was seventeen I sort of knew what I wanted to do but since I didn't have the supportive network I needed as a 17 year old to pursue it I went straight into the workforce- and customer service at that.

I've taught myself Design in the last five years, from scratch. I think I'm pretty good at it, and now that I'm in my second term of my first semester I can see that yeah, I am a little bit ahead of everyone else not just in technical knowledge but in creative application. I didn't get into Monash or anywhere else because of my ENTER, but I know- with great confidence- that I'm definitely not the same person I was when I was 17. ENTER, I think, should be disregarded after 21 or maybe 22-23. You do so much growing up after you hit your twenties it absolutely threw me to think that the Universities still consider how capable you are based on a number you gained in school, when you still didn't really know what you were doing.

Especially as an adult I'm going after a degree that I am so passionate about, as opposed to kids who are still finding their way and some doing what their parents want.

SO, after an amazing response from Monash in the interview, with my folio, I walked out feeling confident but then got a response saying due to my ENTER I was declined. I'm now studying at the Australian Academy of Design- which is awesome. Monash was my first choice, out of RMIT/Swinburne/Monash/AAD, but AAD is a private college that was set up for designers by designers in what I think is a really positive environment. The school structure is different, the teachers are only part time (while working otherwise in their respective studios), and the school itself is quite small so i don't get lost or feel just like a number.

However I've been told, with the marks I've been getting, that I should still consider taking on Monash after the finish of this first year (since by then I would have proved myself 'academically capable') because the standard at Monash would be higher, as opposed to me being a big fish in a small pond. But attracting me to a school is definitely reputation of the school- which Monash has- and I've heard from friends that it has an amazing art/design department, and as much as people say it isn't that important I just get the feeling for me that it does matter what your design degree certificate says - to potential employers. The Academy isn't out there yet and not a lot of people have heard of it. But I tell you I'm having a blast, I love every bit of it.

14. By dylan on 22nd May 2010 @ 12.36 PM

AFAIK Monash has no phd qualified design lecturers

15. By jamesb on 22nd May 2010 @ 3.52 PM

in saying that dylan does a phd qualified design lecturer make them a better design lecturer/teacher?

do years of experience weigh up more then uni qualifications?

in my own experience, i've met some amazing qualified designers and i've also met some amazing self-taught designers. i'd say its more how the designer applies themselves rather then there education but in saying that education surely does make it easier!

16. By peteshand on 23rd May 2010 @ 1.32 AM

Yeah I can't really see qualifications like phd's meaning much in design. Often they amount to long boring essays about semiotics?

I'd like to see a push towards something like Animation Mentor. Where it brings together highly talented professionals that are enthusiastic about what they do and pairing them up with students. I haven't been through the Animation Mentor program but it looks as if it's really effective.

It also takes a lot of the 'fat' out of the whole process. The amount that is paid for universities these days is ludicrous. While us Australians have it better off with subsidies from the government, I cannot see how some of those courses could be 20k-30k a year for foreign students.

17. By Looney on 23rd May 2010 @ 10.52 AM

i think the prospect of a citizenship makes some pay it

18. By Scarlett on 23rd May 2010 @ 11.52 AM

When it comes down to being taught by someone with experience and passion, who's been doing it for twice the length, as opposed to someone with a Phd who doesn't get a lot of actual exposure I know which one I would prefer.

On Pete's mention of mentoring though, I think mentoring is a brilliant idea. I've done some mentoring and I think its so important just to see how people do what they do, and seeing their techniques, habits, ways of dealing with clients and workloads (that is, given that the mentor handles design and clients in a positive way!).

19. By dylan on 23rd May 2010 @ 3.42 PM

interesting responses to the nature of phds and research
most universities won't hire full time lecturers without phd's so if designers want to teach full time they will need phds
universities are meant to be centre's of research and as such gain funding my quality of their research, (maybe one day their creative outputs) so whilst undergrad part of things is important its no where near as important as post grad research
most of the responses focus on the trade based vocation style of education, which is where TAFE or trade schools fit in to the equation

20. By Bubbles on 23rd May 2010 @ 6.45 PM

If I could do it again, I would have gone to Tafe for a year then worked as a runner in some kind of creative production company. That's the smartest way to go about it in my humble opinion.

By the way guys, not sure if you've noticed but if you remove the letters 'p' and 'i' from 'opinion' it makes the word 'onion').

21. By oneweioranother on 24th May 2010 @ 2.02 AM

nice topic! This is going to be a long night—saw the pretty redesign here and decided to avoid my school projects and browse ausinfront instead, ha! Anyway I'd like to share a few thoughts,

dylan, you mentioned research and postgrad education, there's definitely a shift towards research here at in our faculty — whether this was done for ranking purposes I'm not sure... But there's also a growing anti-intellectualism among students and.. others towards this idea of more focus on research—that it's useless, irrelevant etc...

on education, I got a pretty decent ENTER and was looking at Universities as opposed to Tafes as I thought at the time it would provide a more comprehensive education. I was only choosing between RMIT or Monash whilst avoiding Swinburne as that was the year they took out interview and folio requirements and based entry ONLY on ENTER. I think academic performance plays a small part in how you perform in a design course and it's definitely the wrong way to base the competency of a student off. It should be exactly what you said Jen— first an inquisitive and passionate outlook, being able to think creatively and communicate effectively, and lastly technical aptitude.

A couple things effected my decision to go with with RMIT, I tried speaking to the unis about what their difference was (no help at all) and did research on forums, not much help either but I know one thing that was a determinant factor in what course my peers chose (this being the students that were accepted to both unis) was the reception they got at the folio interview! Personally I had a better reception at Monash—RMIT were very cold and neutral, whilst Monash were full of praise, but I think the fact that RMIT was called "Communication Desgin" as opposed to "Visual Communication" at Monash made me feel that RMIT was more relevant. Ultimately, I chose RMIT because it has an Honours program (the Works) that was ran was a functioning studio which was hugely appealing—the quality of their work and city location had me convinced that they were the way to go. Oh and I didn't like the buildings at Monash...ha (very naive at the time) although I do pop by Monash sometimes, since they have better books..

For what goes in a design course, I think (and I don't know how I can stress this more.. imagine the next couple lines follows in bold small caps) there desperately needs some teaching or at least guidance on management skills, I'm in my final year of my degree and after speaking to studios, it seems pretty unanimous that one of the biggest things that fresh graduates lack is time-management skills and other management weaknesses (even file management? I know of a studio who fired a designer for just having really terrible file management).

One last thing, it's frustrating when lecturers only see things their way, and when they have that sort of power, it's easy to convince some students to design JUST for them. I've had a studio manager tell us that sometimes they can SEE who went to the same courses, because all the work looks the same since it's designed for the one person!

So yeh, if excuse the wall of text...that's my 2c.

22. By jesse on 25th May 2010 @ 10.43 AM

Good topic!

I did Graphic Art at Swinburne TAFE, and then Comm Design + Honours at Swinburne Uni. I think a lot of people seriously underestimate TAFE... even though it, at the time, was called "graphic art" it covered the finished art aspects through creative briefs. So I believe I got both technical skills and creative skills through the diploma.. where as when I transferred to third year uni, there was students who had no idea what a Pantone was, and teachers who didn't know how to set up dielines for finished art.

Also, touching on something was mentioned above: in TAFE we had to juggle 10 briefs all at once, over much shorter time periods than you get in uni to complete 4 briefs. So this obviously helped our time management skills. Plus marks came from both the creative quality of the outcome, as well as how correctly and neatly the files had been set up for print. When starting as a junior in a studio, these kind of basic skills are important.

Totally agree that while your ENTER should be considered, it shouldn't be the be the only thing looked at. I was lucky enough to get a free pass from the diploma to the degree without interview or needing a decent ENTER.. but I don't know how they can gauge someone's design thinking ability by such a score. I mean, comm design ended up being my worst subject score in high school, yet I got straight A's and I thought I was pretty decent at it. Interview + folio is the way to go I think.

In the end, education, while affected by where you study, really does come down to the student. If you don't have the passion and don't explore design outside of the set briefs, then I think it'd be quite hard to really make it in the industry. Without the extra effort you're just the same as the thousands of other graduates who completed the briefs to a satisfactory standard. It's the extra something you can add to a brief that makes it more fully realized, and it's the extra work you do outside of uni that makes your folio unique.

Thinking back, uni isn't something I regret doing (and I definitely don't regret TAFE). I did expand my creative horizons in the short time I did uni, and it did push me to become a better designer. But it could always be better... haha. From what I saw, it seems that Swinburne is becoming more research focused, so it'll be interesting to see what happens there.

That was a lot longer than I anticipated!

23. By Jen_Melb on 26th May 2010 @ 6.44 PM

Thanks so much for your responses everyone, they've proved most insightful and I've really enjoyed reading them.

Without giving too much away, I work at one of the leading tertiary institutions (providers of art and design education) in Melbourne and so was interested in getting people's thoughts in order to prompt some dialogue between myself and some of our leading academics about some of these issues.

I look forward to touching base again in the future about how things progressed.

24. By letsmakeart on 27th May 2010 @ 10.32 AM

I know this is specific, but why the hell aren't new designers being taught how to use their transform, align and pathfinder pallettes. For me they are 3 of the most important sets of tools one could possibly use in illustrator and indesign.

This whole chucking guides all over the place and aligning everything to them approach that a lot of designers are taking is complete bs.

If your guides aren't in the right place to begin with, then everything is wrong. Use transform and make sure things are in the exact right spot.

25. By Suicidalpeanut on 29th May 2010 @ 8.04 PM

I went to Tafe and did a diploma of graphic design, I spent the last few years in publishing and did award school part time in 2008. I'd say study at Tafe was good for experimentation but to be honest most of the teachers had been out of the industry too long and had their own ideas of what constituted good/bad design which didn't necessarily reflect reality.

I'd have to say Award school was the most challenging and humbling experience and I learned a lot, however it required a massive paradigm shift and sublimination of ego, which was hard to do within 3 months while holding down a full time job. I almost feel like I need to do it again (ironically the guy that won it in my class had done it years before)

I'd say I learned most of the nitty gritty of design on the job from other designers and from my own mistakes and successes. Ultimately what you learn depends on your attitude, you only get out what you put in.

26. By Cyrildelatorre on 03rd June 2010 @ 1.11 PM

Here's a different approach which leads into the question Jen raised about real-world briefs.

1. CARE: Find a brand or service you care about ( by caring you'll provide a meaning product)

2. RESEARCH: Think how you feel the brand would like to communicate with their customers, ask your friends, people that care about that brand ( this on a deeper level its the market research some brands do to find out what the customers want or how they react to their brand or service)

3. PLAN: Get all your research together, involve your instincts on how you can communicate, this is a mashup of your personal view & the research together. Draw, write, photograph, use whatever media works for you

4. EXECUTE: Let yourself go, you have the strategy ( the thinking ), you have a style ( your preferences drawn from personal visual experiences ), design based on all these elements. Listen but don't get paralysed by other people's opinions, you're in control. Its your visual opinion, your thinking.

5.SHARE: Tell everyone that listens & care (no, not your sister) , the brand (marketing manager) that made the product, your friends, design blogs, design studios. show & tell.

& ideally work in teams, which is the great think about university, etc... everybody have an opinion, but ultimately in the real-world briefs, your client is going to pay you because of your thinking & your style.

Ultimately design is thinking not using tools. other (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bierut) also believe we solve problems.

27. By katjabak on 18th June 2010 @ 12.47 PM

I agree in regards to the ATAR/ENTER business.

I received a high enough ENTER at the end of 2006, but only just. If I had not been interviewed and ultimately rejected, twice, then I think I would have dropped out in my first year - it would have been too daunting, confusing and difficult. Universities NEED to interview their prospective students. I have no idea how I got the ENTER I did, but it was in no way a reflection of how ready I was for Uni, intellectually or creatively. An ENTER or ATAR is just a scale of how much indoctrinated bullshit you can remember and reproduce. The absence of an interview process isn't the beginning of the problem though - it starts in high school.

I took both Studio Arts and Art in high school and in our final year we were told to choose a theme and... run with it. Our ideas were either too broad or too confined and we'd end up changing them on a month to month, or week to week, or even day to day basis. No one was really sure what they were doing. At the end of the year I found myself with a huge pile of unrelated work and a mass of hideous A3 sketchbooks full of thousands of words of annotations, connector-pen rendered borders and titled pages. These are not things that Universities want to see.

In year 12, high schools instill in you that if you don't get a high enough ENTER/ATAR score you wouldn't get into Uni and thus end up poor and alone, no one will love you and you will fail at life, living in a gutter eating moss and discarded cigarette butts. I was terrified. The fact that art and design subjects are scaled down in terms of score, because they're 'easier', I find quite appalling. The amount of hours it takes to compile sketchbooks, site inspiration, build and create works is not 'easy'. Especially when one is a 17 year old, hormone-ridden child given a free pass to create 'whatever' and ultimately becoming lost, confused and angry.

It's different, of course, if you took Visual Communication in high school. I only took it for one year, in year nine. The year consisted of 'designing' a logo for a florist and drawing cubes from different perspectives. I realise that these things need to be learned but how about teaching us what design is, getting us passionate about its possibilities before pushing us into the soul-crushing dullness of it all? After that year I cursed visual communication and never took it again. Those who did ended up with folios full of meticulously coloured images of cars and computers, and very dull but very precise technical exploded diagrams of remote controls and iPods. Things I've been told Universities don't want to see. They want to see your ability to think, not your technical skills - most of which they will teach you anyway.

I spent two years out of school, one of them at Brighton Bay Art and Design Program. That was the only thing that got me into Uni. I had some form of direction. I was passionate and eager and a little neurotically obsessed with art and design. My work wasn't perfect, it wasn't flawless, it wasn't rendered beyond all recognition. But I spoke about it with excitement, and I guess that's what the wanted. Thank god (or whoever) for that interview process!

28. By zack486 on 18th June 2010 @ 2.09 PM

I found the 10 week Award School course very eye opening and it taught me to push myself. The critics were harsh. It was the missing piece between Uni and the commercial world for me. If only indesign had been around in those days…

29. By katjabak on 18th June 2010 @ 4.24 PM

There really is a missing piece between high school and Uni.