Through all the recent criticism and trouble with the last module, I started to think about the what and why of my personal art education. I started to wonder why did I take this route and to question my decision to choose to undertake an academic degree in order to become a designer. After all, a degree doesn't make me a designer; the judgement of a tutor doesn't make me a designer; producing work in accordance to assessment criteria doesn't make me a designer. When I made my personal website, I wrote "I am a graphic designer" in the introductory text. Someone read it and said surprised: "So, you can call yourself a designer already?". Yes, I've been a designer even before I started the course. The question is just how good am I and how can I improve? Do I need a degree to certify that I'm a designer?
My preliminary answer is 'No, but it´s a nice thing to have'. Is it really worth three years of my life and more than three grand each year though? Sometimes I think about it as a consumer. I pay money to receive a certain service or product. This product is education, academic education since it´s a university. However, art school is a special type of university. Things are not typically scientific, logical, graspable, measurable, assessable and usually a bit weird—and that´s intentional. Personally I think I could've easily studied science, languages or maths and be reasonably good at it. But I didn't. I wanted to learn the craft of design, because that´s what I've been interested in.
It used to be so simple. A typesetter used to serve an apprenticeship in typesetting. They got taught how to use the technical and visual tools to create a design and make it ready for print. Although typesetters as such don't exist anymore, the apprenticeship is still common in Germany for example. It´s just called 'designer for digital and print media' now. I used to serve an apprenticeship as a printer and went to the same school as my media designer colleagues for my theory lessons. We had the same typography lessons and solved the same maths problems. We had the same IT teacher and wrote the same essays. The only difference were the technology lessons, where the printers learnt how to adjust rollers and pressure, what boiled linseed oil does in lithographic inks and how to take colorimetric measurings and draw a dot gain curve while the media designers learnt how to use Quark XPress, create design grids and write HTML pages. It is a professional three year training that allows you to call yourself a designer once you pass your final exam. It is hands-on education, they work in real studios for real clients and the best thing: they get paid to do it. It was fate that made me train as a printer but I always wanted to become a designer after this apprenticeship.
It seems obvious to me that academic education, which I pay for, should be either of a better quality than just an apprenticeship or provide me with an education that is fundamentally different to just learning the craft of a designer. When I look back at my academic design education, I'm not sure where I stand now. The foundation course really got me going. I experimented with a wide range of materials, techniques and disciplines, challenged my ideas and understanding of art and design and produced pieces of work that I'm very pleased with. I feel that through the first year of my degree course my progress came to a sudden standstill. I didn't produce anything new and the quality of my work didn't get anywhere near what I had produced previously. It was a rather frustrating experience. Throughout year one and two I felt that my progress had to suffer in order for other people to catch up. Again and again I heard the words 'we want to get everybody onto the same level' which usually meant for me—as a self-motivated individual—that I had to twiddle my thumbs and watch other people making their first steps. The quality of teaching from my subjective point of view was poor; apart from a view modules (namely the visual culture module on postmodern theory and the career module that helped me to position myself in relation to the professional design world) I learned nothing new through the lectures that weren't lectures and the exercises or projects didn't allow me to stretch myself as much as I would've needed it. After three semesters of my degree course I was rather disappointed and frustrated.
The only way how I survived as a design student with an enormous thirst for knowledge was through developing strategies to supplement my learning. Now, reading books is the most obvious way of doing that and it´s an integral part of any university education. As a paying customer, you'd expect some guidance what books are worth reading but as we all know the directed reading lists in all likelihood didn't get the amount of thought from tutors as one would expect. So it´s down to the individual to browse through library catalogues and periodicals, which I did. Through various workshops the course tried to get every student onto the same level of industry standard software knowledge. A noble thought on the one hand, dumbed-down simplified teaching on the other. Those who have ever tried to put the name of their DTP software of choice combined with the word "tut" or "tutorial" into the almighty Google will know that there is a vast range of very accessible material out there to teach you everything, from the first steps to advanced production in virtually any industry standard software or technology. Using the commercial service lynda.com would even be cheaper and more efficient than paying tuition fees.
simplifiziertes Lehren auf der anderen. Wer einmal versucht hat die DTP-Software seiner Wahl kombiniert mit dem Begriff "tut" oder "tutorial" durch das allmächtige Google zu jagen wird wissen, dass es eine rauhe Menge an sehr zugänglichem Material gibt, das einem alles lehrt—von den ersten Schritten bis zur fortgeschrittenen Produktion in praktisch jeder Industriestandard-Software oder Technologie. Selbst wenn man den kommerziellen Service lynda.com nutzen würde, wäre das noch günstiger und effizienter als Studiengebühren zu bezahlen.
There is a range of cheap or even free services that are not only supplements to academic learning, no they could probably even replace a three year design course and save you tens of thousands of pounds. As a matter of fact I learnt more about design debates from typo Berlin design talks, about software with lynda.com training videos (with a free 7 day trial), about resources and practical matters through reading blogs such as smashing magazine or a list apart, and actual academic lectures from iTunes U to name but a few. So how about books? There are libraries in every town and they're free too. I'd suggest that their stock will normally outweigh the faculty library by far. But how about feedback? In the first year one of the tutors demonstrated how much money we pay for our university education. He really emphasised the large sum of money with the intention of highlighting the importance of attendance. It was back then, that I first started to think about this issue and to have a closer look at what I pay for. He argued that our fellow students are our most important resource and that feedback and formal critiques are the things that we really pay for. But can't you get together with likeminded people outside of university? Even in the virtual space you could use a number of design forums, design student forums like precore or more specialised forums like typophile to get feedback for your work from a range of both experts and people that sit in the same boat as you. And if you really dare, you could take part in design competitions. Many of them are free and it gives you briefs to work on that are usually more articulate than what we got last semester.
I'm not suggesting to get rid of art schools and to simply turn to free or nearly free resources out there. Many of the resources only exist because there are art schools and obviously learning isn't limited to one´s time at university. But I do question the approach that I experienced in my personal design education. I suggest that through democratised design education, where specialist knowledge is available to anyone and virtually free, design schools need to react, change and adapt to a higher standard. Otherwise there´s no reason for me to continue making debts in order to pay for wasting my time. I just don't think that I get enough challenge and encouragement through my course, I'm treading on one spot. All this is told from my point of view as a student after a foundation course and three semesters at a BA Honours course in Graphic Design. I have no idea about the situation at other design schools both in Britain and internationally, but I'd be very interested to find out.
Tomorrow I'll start my guest semester at the Zurich University of the Arts. I expect this to be a different learning experience which might be better or worse or perhaps even the same. It´s going to be interesting to see how students in a different country and at a different university but with a comparable academic standard are learning to become designers. This experience could clarify my future or confuse it even more. After all, everybody is and will always be in charge of their own learning. So go ahead and make your own art school.
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