Journal Papers by Aidan Rowe
Design for Health, 2020
Current health-care systems are confronted with progressively complex demands: ageing populations... more Current health-care systems are confronted with progressively complex demands: ageing populations, growing drug ineffectiveness, health mis/disinformation and access to comprehensive services are just a few of the challenges faced today. Design offers methods, practices and processes to help address these challenges. While design and health have a long history of working together, much of this work has been limited. In this article, we make the case for further opportunities for design and health to work together in deep, innovative and human ways. We start by reviewing the transforming space(s) of design, moving on to a discussion of the similarities between healthcare and design. Next, we present three case studies that employ design methods and processes within healthcare settings, exploring new opportunities for synergy. We conclude by summarizing the areas of opportunity uncovered through these …
The Journal of Health Design, 2021
Between 2016 and 2018, more than 11,000 Canadians and 136,000 Americans died from accidental opio... more Between 2016 and 2018, more than 11,000 Canadians and 136,000 Americans died from accidental opioid overdoses—triple the number of deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents. This public health crisis is so severe that by 2017, Canadian life expectancy stopped increasing for the first time in four decades. The distribution of Naloxone kits (emergency first aid for opioid overdoses) has revealed the need for alternative ways to get training, kits, and education to audiences who are at risk of overdose. We report on an interdisciplinary study designed to better understand the barriers to adopting and using Naloxone kits for opioid overdoses. Data from the pilot phase of our research suggest that several opportunities exist in which design methods can help identify and address these barriers.
Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education, Volume 19 Number 1, 2020
Design’s scope of practice has grown from one that was traditionally defined by materials and pro... more Design’s scope of practice has grown from one that was traditionally defined by materials and processes to one where designers are working on some of the most pressing challenges of our times. Once a reactive, artefact-based practice (e.g. poster, typeface, chair, etc.), design is now being situated as a proactive, social and participatory practice focused on outcomes as much as artefacts. Historically, as an academic subject, professional practice and research area, design has suffered from a lack of formal, established research frameworks and theoretical practices. By drawing on established literature, this article makes the case for the use of methods and practices developed in Participatory Action Research (PAR) to inform and enrich design practice, research and particularly education. The article identifies three shared areas between PAR and design that offer an opportunity for further interrogation; these are: a central concern of working with people; the use of iteration and reflection; and the measuring of success through change.
Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal: Annual Review, 2013
This paper examines the benefits, and challenges, of using culture as a focal point and the anthr... more This paper examines the benefits, and challenges, of using culture as a focal point and the anthropological as an approach in a design programme. The case is made for an educational environment that interrogates and uses culture as both an internalizing and externalizing focus. Projects are presented and analysed—from an identity project that paired up North American and Asian students to a study abroad course where students worked and lived in another culture. Finally, the text also examines the benefits, and challenges, of using culture and the anthropologic as points of interrogation in design pedagogy.
Asia Design Journal, Volume 6, Nov 2011
Technologies and globalization have drastically changed how we design and who we design for and w... more Technologies and globalization have drastically changed how we design and who we design for and with. Historically design served as both a producer and representative of a specific culture – designed artefacts represented a particular history and society. Additionally the participants in the design process – client, designer and producer – also shared common histories, language and values.
Digital technologies have drastically expanded the possibilities for design, creating opportunities that move beyond traditional geographies and shared histories and languages. With these opportunities also come challenges – how do we collaborative through technologies? How do we communicate effectively when we do not share common histories or a common language? How can we design for, or with, a different culture?
These are the challenges currently facing design. This paper explores the relationship between culture, communication and technology and the new landscape and possibilities afforded by design. This paper focuses on design education and makes the case for an educational environment that interrogates this relationship – between culture, communication and technology, enabling students to situate their own design practice and future.
I present a variety of projects that allow design students in Asia and in North America to work together – from a collaborative cultural identity project pairing up students from the two continents to a large international exhibition that brings together work from students of design from Asia, North America and the UK.
The paper concludes by examining the benefits and challenges of using culture, communication and technology as a focal point to enable smart design.
Parsons Journal for Information Mapping , Volume 3 Issue 3, 2011
This paper explores means of re-examining our relationship with, and interactions on, the web. By... more This paper explores means of re-examining our relationship with, and interactions on, the web. By probing the dominant existing models—and providing alternatives—I ask questions of the current paradigms and present new opportunities for how we analyze our
interactions and act online. Since the release of the first popularized graphical browser, Mosaic, in 1993, the web has become a market to control: first for information providers and browser companies, and later, for corporations and conglomerates. With each, a standardization of how we interact on the web came into being. Alternative interface models to existing hegemonic practices are not fully entertained as possible means of exploration of this space, hence, we continue to look and interact the same way. By always following the same path are we negating new discoveries? By continually following these ingrained and orthodox practices are we missing opportunities? By porting existing standards to new software and hardware are we limiting our interaction possibilities?
This paper proposes that by exploring alternative interactive models we can better understand how we currently use the web and, more importantly, how we could use the web.
I will set out and re-examine the existing hegemonic interaction model; I will then classify, describe, and explore two broad categories of interface explorations. In each category I will present prototypes—designed artifacts—that provide alternative means of analysis, retrieval, and action, allowing the user to re-examine, re-explore, and re-discover how they use the web.
Parsons Journal for Information Mapping, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2009
Social software has allowed us to question, challenge and change many of our existing practices, ... more Social software has allowed us to question, challenge and change many of our existing practices, from: how we socialise (Facebook); how we promote ourselves, products and acts (MySpace); to how we accumulate and document knowledge (Wikipedia). While many of these forms of interaction, often dubbed Web 2.0 or Social Software, are innovative and are reshaping territories it is my belief that the collective knowledge practice of wikis is the most interesting and radical. Pooling together knowledge accretion, the mass intellect and the self-correcting practices of the collective are all new territories for how we document and validate information and knowledge.
This paper posits that by diagrammatising this knowledge accretion process in social software systems, particularly in wikis, we can better understand our online social spaces, the inter-relationships they create and how we produce and document
knowledge. I will set out and re-examine the current dominant wiki models; I will then classify, describe and explore two categories of wiki visualisation artefacts, these categories are driven by the relationship between the contributor(s), the technologies and the purpose of using the wiki. In each category I shall present prototypes – designed artefacts – to help communicate the benefits of diagrammatising these past conversations and interactions.
Edited Books by Aidan Rowe
Design Education: Approaches, Explorations and Perspectives, Sep 2014
Design Education: Approaches, Explorations and Perspectives documents diverse approaches and prac... more Design Education: Approaches, Explorations and Perspectives documents diverse approaches and practices in design education situated in local, national and international contexts. Bringing together contributions from six design academics, researchers and graduate students this publication includes in-class case studies, long-term research
studies, and graduate research projects.
There is growing recognition from both within the field and from other areas of the unique and critical role that design can play in addressing major issues facing society. Design educators must take a leading role in pushing the field of design, through innovative thinking and action, to address these serious and substantial concerns. Design Education: Approaches, Explorations and Perspectives contributes to
the growing discussion on human-centred design education, research and practice.
Edited / Co-Edited Journals by Aidan Rowe
Journal 7 of the Graphic Design Journal, the official journal of the Graphic Designers of Canada ... more Journal 7 of the Graphic Design Journal, the official journal of the Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC). Journal 7 consists of two narratives—the first is centred on design that touches all Canadians, be it the iconic maple leaf which adorns our knapsacks or the logo on the side of a commuter train, to the signage at the strip mall where we buy our milk. The second narrative is a series of peer-reviewed research papers that were presented at the PICA 2014 conference in Edmonton.
Book Chapters & Sections by Aidan Rowe
Design Education: Approaches, Explorations and Perspectives, Sep 2014
In this paper I examine and present the role that cultural
interrogation can, and needs, to play... more In this paper I examine and present the role that cultural
interrogation can, and needs, to play in a contemporary design program. I make the case for an educational environment that interrogates and uses culture as a both an internalizing and externalizing focus. The integration of a cultural focus in design pedagogy creates opportunities for students to work with and design for the Other, and this empowers students to question, define, communicate, and design in and for their own culture. Projects are presented and analyzed—from a collaborative cultural identity brief that paired together North American and Asian design students to a study-abroad course where students had the opportunity of working with designers, design educators and design students while living in another culture.
InSight: Visualizing Health Humanities, May 2012
I leave to the various futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths." -Jorge Luis Borges 1
Encyclopedia Entry by Aidan Rowe
Rowe, Aidan. 2017. “Infographics.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Communication. Ed. Patricia Moy. N... more Rowe, Aidan. 2017. “Infographics.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Communication. Ed. Patricia Moy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Conference Proceedings by Aidan Rowe
DESIGNA2013 Interface Conference Proceedings, 2014
The role of design and designers has drastically changed. Designers now work across and with a va... more The role of design and designers has drastically changed. Designers now work across and with a variety of fields, organisations and people and are as focused on outcomes as outputs. This shifting landscape of, and for, design presents challenges, including how we develop programs to educate designers who are able to: ask questions and design artefacts; address complex social issues; and, work in a world where an aretefact is designed on one continent, produced on another and consumed in a third.
How do we educate critical designers that can embrace these opportunities and lead the field of design? Three key areas needed in such a program are: opportunity to work across and with other disciplines; greater integration of participatory and collaborative design methods; and, further focus on the lens of culture.
This paper documents projects to further develop a North American design program in light of these areas. By situating and examining these three areas we better prepare the designers that are needed to address the challenges of the future.
DesignEducation Asia 2011 Conference Proceedings, Hong Kong, China, 2011
The last twenty years have seen a fundamental shift in the design profession. Where once design w... more The last twenty years have seen a fundamental shift in the design profession. Where once design was neatly segmented into specific practices based upon form or output (graphic, product, fashion, etc.), design is now often practiced holistically, less concerned with final forms but with overall change affected. Additionally, advances in production and communication technologies have reshaped the design marketplace. Design is truly a global affair where an artefact might be designed on one continent, produced on another and sold
in a third.
There is a need for design education to evolve to address these changes. This paper interrogates a pair of collaborative international projects that attempt to address some of the opportunities and challenges required for a new design curriculum. Through the lens of cross-cultural design education, students in Canada and Hong Kong collaborated on projects that explored issues of culture, research and communication and examined new
design territories through co-creation.
DesignEd Asia 2009 Conference Proceedings (Hong Kong, China), 2009
Design education is in a challenging period. Caught between trying to grow out of a service indus... more Design education is in a challenging period. Caught between trying to grow out of a service industry based on a 20th century model and a world that has embraced technologies that drastically change how we relate to and with each other, many design education programs are at a crucial crossroads. We are left with the question of how we can educate designers who will serve as contributing citizens and are able to articulate the larger role that design needs to play in the 21st century?
This paper proposes that by using the framework of the anthropological and the lens of the international we can achieve two key pedagogic goals: identify exemplar international educational practices that embrace the anthropological and from which we can learn; and, create new international opportunities for putting these innovative practices into play.
Exhibition Publications by Aidan Rowe
InSight 2: Engaging the Health Humanities, May 2013
This publication documents an international exhibition and symposium that offer frameworks for ex... more This publication documents an international exhibition and symposium that offer frameworks for examining linkages, experiences, visualisations and productive imaginings at the nexus of the health humanities, design and community engagement. 32 international designers and artists are featured with an introduction by Alan Bleakley.
Exhibition curated by Aidan Rowe, Bonnie Sadler Takach and Pamela Brett-MacLean.
InSight: Visualizing Health Humanities, May 2012
A publication to accompany the InSight: Visualizing Health Humanities exhibition held at the Fine... more A publication to accompany the InSight: Visualizing Health Humanities exhibition held at the Fine Arts Building Gallery at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada from May 15 to June 9, 2012. The publication features the work of 32 artists, performers and designers in addition to accompanying original articles.
The InSight project brings connects medicine, health sciences, arts, design, humanities and social sciences, through an exhibition of visual, sound, publication and performance explorations.
"Marshal McLuhan is considered one of the foremost intellectuals of the 20th-century. His ideas a... more "Marshal McLuhan is considered one of the foremost intellectuals of the 20th-century. His ideas and theories resonate across a myriad of practices, subjects and disciplines. 2011 marks the centenary of McLuhan's birth. The Spaces&Places:VisioningMcLuhan@100 exhibition brings together ten artists and designers that explore concepts and ideas that relate to and explore manifestations of McLuhan’s ideas.
Blurring Boundaries WAVE Exhibition, 2008
The WAVE 2008: Blurring Boundaries exhibition brings together over 150 pieces of staff and studen... more The WAVE 2008: Blurring Boundaries exhibition brings together over 150 pieces of staff and student work from four international art & design programmes. Institutes contributing to this show include:
• School of Design, Ewha Womans University, Korea;
• Camberwell College of Arts, University of Arts London, UK;
• Cardiff School of Art & Design, UK; and
• Department of Art & Design, University of Alberta, Canada.
Participants have used the theme of blurring boundaries in a range of ways, exploring new means of production and mediums, juxtaposing traditional subjects with innovative materials, or collaborating in innovative ways with other artists and designers. The show is unique in that normal lines of exhibition selection and presentation are ignored; staff work is shown next to student; painter to graphic designer; printmaker to video artist.
"
Keynote Conference Presentations by Aidan Rowe
The space of design is in flux. Over the last two decades we have seen substantial change to the ... more The space of design is in flux. Over the last two decades we have seen substantial change to the field of design. Where once design was based on an apprenticeship system with a focus on materials, outputs and artefacts design often now positions itself at the forefront of fields that can address key societal issues.
Additionally, we have seen the field of design both fragment through a variety of specialisms—for example User Experience Design to Service Design to Speculative Design—and expand to a general practice where any conscious plan of change is labeled design and anyone can be a designer.
These shifts and evolutions call for radical rethinking on how we define design and who is a designer. The active—rather than passive reliance on the past—establishment of an identity and future for design is a crucial activity. There is a need for an interrogation of not only what design is but also what it needs to be; importantly I will argue that this interrogation—this vanguard—needs to be led by design education: institutions, schools, academics and students themselves.
We must radically re-evaluate the educational modes, frameworks and practices built over the last century and longer in design education. This paper examines the possibility and role for design futures and considers how educators need to articulate how they can enable the next generation of designers with the skills, abilities, ethics and vision needed to embrace these opportunities and lead the field of design.
This paper explores needed curriculum qualities to further develop more robust and authentic design education practices and environments. In these environments students learn to become designers that can act critically while articulating possibilities for design. Specifically I make the case for four specific qualities needed: more opportunities for interdisciplinary practice; working through a human-centered focus; increased cultural interrogation; and education opportunities that explore design as a critical practice.
Curriculum projects and experiments are presented that have been designed to integrate these qualities into practice. Research and feedback is presented to help better understand the benefits and challenges of these curriculum developments and they are contextualized in a broader theoretical framework.
As Jones notes in discussing design "It's clear to me that no big change is possible till we change ourselves and our ideas" (1979, 33). It is critical that design educators and students are at the heart of this vanguard and articulation, defining design’s futures and identities.
---------
Keynote presented presented at Coloquio Internacional de Diseño 2016, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, Toluca, Mexico, September 9, 2016.
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Journal Papers by Aidan Rowe
Digital technologies have drastically expanded the possibilities for design, creating opportunities that move beyond traditional geographies and shared histories and languages. With these opportunities also come challenges – how do we collaborative through technologies? How do we communicate effectively when we do not share common histories or a common language? How can we design for, or with, a different culture?
These are the challenges currently facing design. This paper explores the relationship between culture, communication and technology and the new landscape and possibilities afforded by design. This paper focuses on design education and makes the case for an educational environment that interrogates this relationship – between culture, communication and technology, enabling students to situate their own design practice and future.
I present a variety of projects that allow design students in Asia and in North America to work together – from a collaborative cultural identity project pairing up students from the two continents to a large international exhibition that brings together work from students of design from Asia, North America and the UK.
The paper concludes by examining the benefits and challenges of using culture, communication and technology as a focal point to enable smart design.
interactions and act online. Since the release of the first popularized graphical browser, Mosaic, in 1993, the web has become a market to control: first for information providers and browser companies, and later, for corporations and conglomerates. With each, a standardization of how we interact on the web came into being. Alternative interface models to existing hegemonic practices are not fully entertained as possible means of exploration of this space, hence, we continue to look and interact the same way. By always following the same path are we negating new discoveries? By continually following these ingrained and orthodox practices are we missing opportunities? By porting existing standards to new software and hardware are we limiting our interaction possibilities?
This paper proposes that by exploring alternative interactive models we can better understand how we currently use the web and, more importantly, how we could use the web.
I will set out and re-examine the existing hegemonic interaction model; I will then classify, describe, and explore two broad categories of interface explorations. In each category I will present prototypes—designed artifacts—that provide alternative means of analysis, retrieval, and action, allowing the user to re-examine, re-explore, and re-discover how they use the web.
This paper posits that by diagrammatising this knowledge accretion process in social software systems, particularly in wikis, we can better understand our online social spaces, the inter-relationships they create and how we produce and document
knowledge. I will set out and re-examine the current dominant wiki models; I will then classify, describe and explore two categories of wiki visualisation artefacts, these categories are driven by the relationship between the contributor(s), the technologies and the purpose of using the wiki. In each category I shall present prototypes – designed artefacts – to help communicate the benefits of diagrammatising these past conversations and interactions.
Edited Books by Aidan Rowe
studies, and graduate research projects.
There is growing recognition from both within the field and from other areas of the unique and critical role that design can play in addressing major issues facing society. Design educators must take a leading role in pushing the field of design, through innovative thinking and action, to address these serious and substantial concerns. Design Education: Approaches, Explorations and Perspectives contributes to
the growing discussion on human-centred design education, research and practice.
Edited / Co-Edited Journals by Aidan Rowe
Book Chapters & Sections by Aidan Rowe
interrogation can, and needs, to play in a contemporary design program. I make the case for an educational environment that interrogates and uses culture as a both an internalizing and externalizing focus. The integration of a cultural focus in design pedagogy creates opportunities for students to work with and design for the Other, and this empowers students to question, define, communicate, and design in and for their own culture. Projects are presented and analyzed—from a collaborative cultural identity brief that paired together North American and Asian design students to a study-abroad course where students had the opportunity of working with designers, design educators and design students while living in another culture.
Encyclopedia Entry by Aidan Rowe
Conference Proceedings by Aidan Rowe
How do we educate critical designers that can embrace these opportunities and lead the field of design? Three key areas needed in such a program are: opportunity to work across and with other disciplines; greater integration of participatory and collaborative design methods; and, further focus on the lens of culture.
This paper documents projects to further develop a North American design program in light of these areas. By situating and examining these three areas we better prepare the designers that are needed to address the challenges of the future.
in a third.
There is a need for design education to evolve to address these changes. This paper interrogates a pair of collaborative international projects that attempt to address some of the opportunities and challenges required for a new design curriculum. Through the lens of cross-cultural design education, students in Canada and Hong Kong collaborated on projects that explored issues of culture, research and communication and examined new
design territories through co-creation.
This paper proposes that by using the framework of the anthropological and the lens of the international we can achieve two key pedagogic goals: identify exemplar international educational practices that embrace the anthropological and from which we can learn; and, create new international opportunities for putting these innovative practices into play.
Exhibition Publications by Aidan Rowe
Exhibition curated by Aidan Rowe, Bonnie Sadler Takach and Pamela Brett-MacLean.
The InSight project brings connects medicine, health sciences, arts, design, humanities and social sciences, through an exhibition of visual, sound, publication and performance explorations.
• School of Design, Ewha Womans University, Korea;
• Camberwell College of Arts, University of Arts London, UK;
• Cardiff School of Art & Design, UK; and
• Department of Art & Design, University of Alberta, Canada.
Participants have used the theme of blurring boundaries in a range of ways, exploring new means of production and mediums, juxtaposing traditional subjects with innovative materials, or collaborating in innovative ways with other artists and designers. The show is unique in that normal lines of exhibition selection and presentation are ignored; staff work is shown next to student; painter to graphic designer; printmaker to video artist.
"
Keynote Conference Presentations by Aidan Rowe
Additionally, we have seen the field of design both fragment through a variety of specialisms—for example User Experience Design to Service Design to Speculative Design—and expand to a general practice where any conscious plan of change is labeled design and anyone can be a designer.
These shifts and evolutions call for radical rethinking on how we define design and who is a designer. The active—rather than passive reliance on the past—establishment of an identity and future for design is a crucial activity. There is a need for an interrogation of not only what design is but also what it needs to be; importantly I will argue that this interrogation—this vanguard—needs to be led by design education: institutions, schools, academics and students themselves.
We must radically re-evaluate the educational modes, frameworks and practices built over the last century and longer in design education. This paper examines the possibility and role for design futures and considers how educators need to articulate how they can enable the next generation of designers with the skills, abilities, ethics and vision needed to embrace these opportunities and lead the field of design.
This paper explores needed curriculum qualities to further develop more robust and authentic design education practices and environments. In these environments students learn to become designers that can act critically while articulating possibilities for design. Specifically I make the case for four specific qualities needed: more opportunities for interdisciplinary practice; working through a human-centered focus; increased cultural interrogation; and education opportunities that explore design as a critical practice.
Curriculum projects and experiments are presented that have been designed to integrate these qualities into practice. Research and feedback is presented to help better understand the benefits and challenges of these curriculum developments and they are contextualized in a broader theoretical framework.
As Jones notes in discussing design "It's clear to me that no big change is possible till we change ourselves and our ideas" (1979, 33). It is critical that design educators and students are at the heart of this vanguard and articulation, defining design’s futures and identities.
---------
Keynote presented presented at Coloquio Internacional de Diseño 2016, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, Toluca, Mexico, September 9, 2016.
Digital technologies have drastically expanded the possibilities for design, creating opportunities that move beyond traditional geographies and shared histories and languages. With these opportunities also come challenges – how do we collaborative through technologies? How do we communicate effectively when we do not share common histories or a common language? How can we design for, or with, a different culture?
These are the challenges currently facing design. This paper explores the relationship between culture, communication and technology and the new landscape and possibilities afforded by design. This paper focuses on design education and makes the case for an educational environment that interrogates this relationship – between culture, communication and technology, enabling students to situate their own design practice and future.
I present a variety of projects that allow design students in Asia and in North America to work together – from a collaborative cultural identity project pairing up students from the two continents to a large international exhibition that brings together work from students of design from Asia, North America and the UK.
The paper concludes by examining the benefits and challenges of using culture, communication and technology as a focal point to enable smart design.
interactions and act online. Since the release of the first popularized graphical browser, Mosaic, in 1993, the web has become a market to control: first for information providers and browser companies, and later, for corporations and conglomerates. With each, a standardization of how we interact on the web came into being. Alternative interface models to existing hegemonic practices are not fully entertained as possible means of exploration of this space, hence, we continue to look and interact the same way. By always following the same path are we negating new discoveries? By continually following these ingrained and orthodox practices are we missing opportunities? By porting existing standards to new software and hardware are we limiting our interaction possibilities?
This paper proposes that by exploring alternative interactive models we can better understand how we currently use the web and, more importantly, how we could use the web.
I will set out and re-examine the existing hegemonic interaction model; I will then classify, describe, and explore two broad categories of interface explorations. In each category I will present prototypes—designed artifacts—that provide alternative means of analysis, retrieval, and action, allowing the user to re-examine, re-explore, and re-discover how they use the web.
This paper posits that by diagrammatising this knowledge accretion process in social software systems, particularly in wikis, we can better understand our online social spaces, the inter-relationships they create and how we produce and document
knowledge. I will set out and re-examine the current dominant wiki models; I will then classify, describe and explore two categories of wiki visualisation artefacts, these categories are driven by the relationship between the contributor(s), the technologies and the purpose of using the wiki. In each category I shall present prototypes – designed artefacts – to help communicate the benefits of diagrammatising these past conversations and interactions.
studies, and graduate research projects.
There is growing recognition from both within the field and from other areas of the unique and critical role that design can play in addressing major issues facing society. Design educators must take a leading role in pushing the field of design, through innovative thinking and action, to address these serious and substantial concerns. Design Education: Approaches, Explorations and Perspectives contributes to
the growing discussion on human-centred design education, research and practice.
interrogation can, and needs, to play in a contemporary design program. I make the case for an educational environment that interrogates and uses culture as a both an internalizing and externalizing focus. The integration of a cultural focus in design pedagogy creates opportunities for students to work with and design for the Other, and this empowers students to question, define, communicate, and design in and for their own culture. Projects are presented and analyzed—from a collaborative cultural identity brief that paired together North American and Asian design students to a study-abroad course where students had the opportunity of working with designers, design educators and design students while living in another culture.
How do we educate critical designers that can embrace these opportunities and lead the field of design? Three key areas needed in such a program are: opportunity to work across and with other disciplines; greater integration of participatory and collaborative design methods; and, further focus on the lens of culture.
This paper documents projects to further develop a North American design program in light of these areas. By situating and examining these three areas we better prepare the designers that are needed to address the challenges of the future.
in a third.
There is a need for design education to evolve to address these changes. This paper interrogates a pair of collaborative international projects that attempt to address some of the opportunities and challenges required for a new design curriculum. Through the lens of cross-cultural design education, students in Canada and Hong Kong collaborated on projects that explored issues of culture, research and communication and examined new
design territories through co-creation.
This paper proposes that by using the framework of the anthropological and the lens of the international we can achieve two key pedagogic goals: identify exemplar international educational practices that embrace the anthropological and from which we can learn; and, create new international opportunities for putting these innovative practices into play.
Exhibition curated by Aidan Rowe, Bonnie Sadler Takach and Pamela Brett-MacLean.
The InSight project brings connects medicine, health sciences, arts, design, humanities and social sciences, through an exhibition of visual, sound, publication and performance explorations.
• School of Design, Ewha Womans University, Korea;
• Camberwell College of Arts, University of Arts London, UK;
• Cardiff School of Art & Design, UK; and
• Department of Art & Design, University of Alberta, Canada.
Participants have used the theme of blurring boundaries in a range of ways, exploring new means of production and mediums, juxtaposing traditional subjects with innovative materials, or collaborating in innovative ways with other artists and designers. The show is unique in that normal lines of exhibition selection and presentation are ignored; staff work is shown next to student; painter to graphic designer; printmaker to video artist.
"
Additionally, we have seen the field of design both fragment through a variety of specialisms—for example User Experience Design to Service Design to Speculative Design—and expand to a general practice where any conscious plan of change is labeled design and anyone can be a designer.
These shifts and evolutions call for radical rethinking on how we define design and who is a designer. The active—rather than passive reliance on the past—establishment of an identity and future for design is a crucial activity. There is a need for an interrogation of not only what design is but also what it needs to be; importantly I will argue that this interrogation—this vanguard—needs to be led by design education: institutions, schools, academics and students themselves.
We must radically re-evaluate the educational modes, frameworks and practices built over the last century and longer in design education. This paper examines the possibility and role for design futures and considers how educators need to articulate how they can enable the next generation of designers with the skills, abilities, ethics and vision needed to embrace these opportunities and lead the field of design.
This paper explores needed curriculum qualities to further develop more robust and authentic design education practices and environments. In these environments students learn to become designers that can act critically while articulating possibilities for design. Specifically I make the case for four specific qualities needed: more opportunities for interdisciplinary practice; working through a human-centered focus; increased cultural interrogation; and education opportunities that explore design as a critical practice.
Curriculum projects and experiments are presented that have been designed to integrate these qualities into practice. Research and feedback is presented to help better understand the benefits and challenges of these curriculum developments and they are contextualized in a broader theoretical framework.
As Jones notes in discussing design "It's clear to me that no big change is possible till we change ourselves and our ideas" (1979, 33). It is critical that design educators and students are at the heart of this vanguard and articulation, defining design’s futures and identities.
---------
Keynote presented presented at Coloquio Internacional de Diseño 2016, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, Toluca, Mexico, September 9, 2016.
The maker movement is taking on healthcare as providers, patients, and hobbyists hack technology to create new and better health devices and products. Social and innovation labs are springing up around the globe as creative and collaborative spaces for diverse groups of stakeholders to rethink ‘old ways’ of doing things through dialogue, doing and making. Against this backdrop, design is emerging as an increasingly important area within the possibility of the health professions. We are seeing the beginning of design and its processes and methods being employed in a range of institutions, scenarios and organizations to address some of the most complex challenges facing society.
Design provides a broad framework of tools, processes and systems to effect change in the world. Positioning design as an agent of change that takes as its focus the betterment of the human condition aligns design close to—and shares many goals with—medicine, public health and the health humanities.
This paper discusses the possibilities and opportunities of employing design thinking, methods and processes to enact difference for a 21st century healthcare system. It begins by describing the relationship and similarities to the fields of design and healthcare, identifying shared histories, goals and practices.
Curriculum projects, research and experiments are presented that have been designed to align and employ design practices in health care settings. Deliberately these experiments range in scale and scope, from the implementation of focused design practices in specific environments to larger longitudinal policy design research to curricular programs that bring together design and health students to address pressing community issues. Research and feedback is presented to help better understand the benefits and challenges of these developments and they are contextualized in a broader theoretical framework.
As Jones notes we need "new ways to learn, think, and work quickly to make sense of the human, system, and organizational problems that co-occur every day in the morass of healthcare." (2013, 29). I argue that design offers a powerful array of theories, practices and ways of thinking to address key and pressing healthcare issues of the 21st century.
How do we prepare and educate critical designers that can embrace these opportunities and lead the field of design? If education serves as a catalyst of change for students, and also for academics, what should this interface look like?
Three key areas needed in such a design programme are: more opportunities to work interdisciplinarily; further focus on collaborative & participatory practices; and, increased emphasis on interrogating culture(s).
The paper begins by noting changes to the discipline of design and the corresponding changes, or lack of, in design education. Two projects are presented that have been designed to address the three key areas identified, research and feedback are presented to help understand the benefits and challenges. I conclude by discussing the possibilities for furthering design education through these three areas.
Educators are left with the challenge of further developing programs that educate designers who: are as skilled at asking questions as designing artefacts; will place design within a larger holistic context; are able to critically assess their practices and environs; and, importantly, are able to see and articulate the larger role that design needs to play in the 21st century. In short how can we develop programs that enable design students to pursue what the design educator Tony Fry terms the “qualitative over the quantitative”.
This paper proposes that one means of addressing these issues–and re-examining our pedagogic practices–is through the frame of the anthropological and the lens of the international. The paper documents a variety of projects that use the international as a means of production, presentation and of collaboration. Examples include more complex
projects–a design travel course that examines spaces and places of different locations to a smaller project that paired students up with international collaborators on a short intense brief.
Finally I examine the benefits, and challenges, of using the International and the anthropological as a reexamining focus for our current pedagogic practice, proposing some key concepts, practices and possibilities required of today’s design programs to ensure that we are educating the designers that we need tomorrow."
Building on our practicum courses and client projects (where we bring clients into the classroom), the learning experience moves to a design studio setting in a public space, thus providing an authentic arena for active, discovery learning and laying the foundation for life-long learning and professional development, while providing design solutions for community clients. The outcomes of this study are helping to direct the development of relevant and effective curriculum and learning experiences needed to educate socially responsible designers who will serve as contributing citizens in our community. We will show how students used design technologies / social software (blogs, Flickr, facebook, YouTube, time-lapse movies, etc.) as tools of collaboration, communication and production, and how they activated the public space to share their ongoing design processes and concepts through continuous digital projection and changing 2D / 3D displays.
This presents opportunities for currents students that, if exploited within the curriculum, have the potential to ensure they have a stake in a wider design discourse and attain the ownership of subject that their tutors strive to give them.
This case study explores the use of social software to create a bottom up alternative to traditional VLEs. By using technological systems that are familiar and popular with and to students, who by their very nature are early adopters, we propose that we can realize benefits that are achieved from traditional VLEs in addition to benefits that are unique to social software systems.
The case study examines the integration of these social software systems into the BA (Hons) Graphic Design: New Media programme and documents the benefits and challenges encountered over the last two years. It will examine the pedagogic scenario on the course pre-social software and the current scenario. It will also propose some possible future developments for how these systems will affect our developing design pedagogical model and wider design discourse.
This case study examines the results of incorporating Teaching Assistants into this educational environment, in the hopes of creating a better learning environment.
for examining linkages, experiences, visualisations and productive imaginings at the nexus of the health humanities, design and community engagement. 32 international designers and artists are featured in this exhibition.
Co-Curated with Bonnie Sadler Takach and Pamela Brett-MacLean.
Co-Curated with Bonnie Sadler Takach and Pamela Brett-MacLean.
The Spaces&Places exhibition is held in association with the annual convention of the Media Ecology Association be held at the University of Alberta, from 23 to 26 June 2011. The MEA convention, in tandem with this exhibition, are intended to contribute to a public dialogue about Marshall McLuhan’s legacy of ideas.
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Reflective Account document serves as both a reflective
report and a future setting document. It pulls together
qualitative and quantitative research to help analyze a
personal experience in the Fachbereich Design at the
Fachhochschule Münster for the academic year 2013–14.
The document begins by establishing the Situational
Contexts of the University, the Faculty, the Author and
the Research undertaken. The second section, Design
Practice: A Profession in Transition, documents changes
to the wider field and practice of design. The third section,
Design Education: Changing Landscapes & Priorities,
discusses changes to design education from national and
international contexts and provides background information
informing the rest of the document. The Analysis section
deals with two main areas affecting the Fachbereich:
Strengths and Challenges. Analysis of these two areas
informs the following section, Future Opportunities:
Fachbereich, this section discusses possible areas of
focus and investment. The document ends with the
Conclusion section that summarizes the main points of
the document. The Appendix section contains the table
Design Education Provision: NRW & Germany detailing
the current state of higher education design provision in
Germany with a focus on North Rhine Westphalia.
It should be noted that any document—especially one
as reflective as this—is a personal snapshot, a moment
in time that is informed by individual experiences in the
Fachbereich. At its essence this document presents an
opportunity to ask how and why we teach design, and
more importantly informs the discussion of how we could
and should teach design. Nonetheless it is hoped that this
document provides some knowledge, insight and strategic
possibilities for positive change in relation to design
education in the Fachbereich Design.