The Invisible Bicycle Helmet
"Fredrik Gertten profiles two idealistic young female entrepreneurs who created a revolutionary 21st-century design object everyone told them would be impossible to fashion."
(Focus Forward Films, 2012)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Creativity is key to successful completion of design researcher PhDs
"DESIGNERS ENJOY DESIGNING
The practicalities of the design-based Ph.D (or Ph.D's generally in the creative arts) often fails to recognise the wider needs of the researcher who would typically have bachelors and masters degrees in their field and where the structure of their degree programme(s) would have been practice-based i.e. they have considerable prior history of creative practice; they enjoy creative practice; and they may well miss the fulfilment of creative practice if none was undertaken during a three to five year full time Ph.D.
STUDENTS NEED TUTORS THAT CAN DESIGN
Practice-based learning at undergraduate and masters level requires a significant taught input by competent practitioners. It is all too common for academics to loose or fail to develop capability in practice as they move through an academic career that is based on teaching and research. The typical route by which full-time academics with a practitioner background acquire a Ph.D is through part-time study. In order to maintain competence as a practitioner for the benefit of students, there is a case to encourage the use of practice in staff Ph.D's.
RESEARCH OUTCOMES NEED DESIGNING
An unexpected outcome from the author's experience of Ph.D supervision in creative disciplines has been the scenario where professional practice was necessary for the progress of the research. 'Tools' are a popular and relevant outcome from design-based Ph.D's and situations arise where the tool itself must be designed in order to facilitate its validation. It is therefore necessary to consider the use of researcher-practice where practice is not a direct means of the data collection but a process by which research outcomes can progress to validation."
(Mark Evans, p.75, 2009)
Evans, M. (2009). "Creative professional practice in methods and methodology: case study examples from Ph.D’s in industrial design". EKSIG 2009: Experiential Knowledge, Method & Methodology, Experiential Knowledge Special Interest Group.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Dieter Rams: lasting principles for good design
"Tom Dyckhoff meets up with Dieter Rams, whose designs have found a permanent home in museums over the world."
The Culture Show, Episode 17, broadcast on Thursday 3 December 2009 23:20 BBC Two.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Privileging the collective: the tradition of the atelier method in art and design education
"Art and design education has broadly settled on two categories of pedagogical frameworks, both evolutions from historical precedents. The first of these categories is driven by the spirit of the 'design collective', and comprises the art school studio or atelier model. This was established by the private Florentine art schools of the renaissance from around the 15th Century (King, 2003), always with a focus on making as well as learning from the group - from both peers and Masters. Later, this model of learning through practice carried over to the art schools of England: in his 1858 inaugural address for the Cambridge School of Art, John Ruskin (Ruskin, 1858) spoke about the relative futility of formal teaching per se and instead the pressing need for students to learn by repeated and applied making. For applied craft and design, this studio approach was the method under the influential Bauhaus School (1919-1933) in Germany (Droste, 2005). The second category derives from the teaching of industrial arts and is typically driven by the far greater student volume processing needs of the institution. This category comprises the 'hot desking' or increasingly the 'no-desking' model, with large taught classes in lecture format, and occasional group tutorials. Such a model is often the norm for universities' academic courses. The model spread to the creative courses that were more typically offered by polytechnics in the UK. The first polytechnic dates back to the early nineteenth century (Fox, 1832-1854), although most were established in the 1960's with a remit of applied education in industry and science for work. In many countries, the term 'technical college' is the same as a polytechnic - in both the UK and Australia, many of these colleges converted into universities in the last 30 years."
(Ashley Hall and Tom Barker, 2010)
Hall, A. and T. Barker (2010). "Design collectives in education: evaluating the atelier format and the use of teaching narrative for collective cultural and creative learning, and the subsequent impact on professional practice". In Alternative Practices in Design: Past Present and Future. H. Edquist and L. Vaughan. Melbourne, Victoria, RMIT University: Design Research Institute.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Design Principles and Practices: a knowledge community
SEVENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DESIGN PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES, Japan
Proposals for In-Person Presentations Due: 6 December 2012
"The International Conference on Design Principles and Practices, its associated design journals, the On Design Book Series and the Design News Blog are sites of discussion which explore the meaning and purpose of design. Participants in these forums also speaking in grounded ways about the task of design and the use of designed artifacts and processes. The Conference, Journal, Book Imprint and News Blog support a cross-disciplinary knowledge community, bringing together researchers, teachers and practitioners to discuss the nature and future of design. The resulting conversations weave between the theoretical and the empirical, research and application, market pragmatics and social idealism.
In professional and disciplinary terms, the conference, journals, book series and online media traverse a broad sweep to construct a transdisciplinary dialogue which encompasses the perspectives and practices of: anthropology, architecture, art, artificial intelligence, business, cognitive science, communication studies, computer science, cultural studies, design studies, education, e-learning, engineering, ergonomics, fashion, graphic design, history, information systems, industrial design, industrial engineering, instructional design, interior design, interaction design, interface design, journalism, landscape architecture, law, linguistics and semiotics, management, media and entertainment, psychology, sociology, software engineering, technical communication, telecommunications, urban planning and visual design – to name some of the design disciplines."
(Common Ground)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
