Research Methodologies Reading No.1

Graphic Design Education as a Liberal Art: Design and Knowledge in the University

by Gunnar Swanson

Issues in graphic design education as well as other faculties.

What happens to design students who don't make it? They are often seen as failures because design studies do not prepare students for life other than design.

He suggests that we increase design /training practice with more liberal studies and reconsider it not as a design but as a liberal art.

Liberal courses are intrinsically important and crucial to self development. Even though many designers have no desire for post-graduate, the curriculum prepares them for it.

On the whole, design studies has not helped design students become people capable of shaping the world as a democratic whole.

"Design should be about meaning and how meaning can be created. Design should be about the relationship of form and communication."

The concerns of design will not be directly addressed by academia until it becomes an academic subject.