Should design students dissolve the line between thinking and making? After reading and analysing “This stands as a sketch for the future”, by Jeffrey L.
Cruikshank, we came to the idea of a publication that would be able to recognize the value of design education; one that would emphasize the power of conceptualization and production coming together and not as separated parts. The main goal is, by asking a few crucial questions, to alert and to suggest a solution to the problem present in design schools. Somehow, find a “whole new world” when teac
hing design.
“This stands as a sketch for the future” is a journey through Muriel Cooper’s work. She leaves us some points that she believes to be the keys to the future in design education. As we totally agree with her, we made our research and found some designers, schools, and ways of teaching and working that support this line of thought – which actually leads to what we consider a good design approach. Muriel Cooper, Ellen Lupton, Michael Bierut, Jessica Helfand, Michael Rock, Steven McCarthy, Gregory Vines, Joe Marianek, Andrew Blauvelt are designers and teachers that have a similar and strong opinion about breaking the gap between “thinking” and “making” in the process of a design project. They value the paper of the designer as an integrant part of every stage when producing an object, making sure the designer/design student has enough knowledge about the whole work. The only way of creating an object with significance is being part of its construction. Our project is divided in two different supports: an application, and a printed object. The app contains three essential questions that derive from our first question (Should design students dissolve the line between thinking and making?): 1 - “What is the line between thinking and making?”, 2 - “Should design students dissolve this line?” and 3 - “How can they dissolve it?”, which are the structure
of our project. The printed object contains a compilation of texts about the importance of the process, explaining how thinking and making can come together, one through another; explaining how the designer can work as the “handyman” of a project. With these two different supports we pretend not to suddenly and miraculously solve design education problems but to plant the will of change. We create this will by pointing the problem and showing the possible solutions to it.
