The Design in Education SIG aims to expand and clarify our understanding of ‘Design’ and its fundamental role in contributing to the scope and purpose of art & design education.
The word ‘Design’ is made complex by the range of uses and multiple meanings it has in different contexts. Design is an area of study, a broad description of a creative and typically collaborative process, a way of thinking and behaving, an aspiration, a career title that ranges across the creative, media, design, engineering and manufacturing industries from film and architecture to aerospace. What is common to all these careers is a way of thinking and creative behaviour, common to both and complimentary with everything we also associate with art.
In the 21st century, there can be no art without design, and no design without art. They are the flip sides of creative thinking and behaving, resulting in action and outcome. They utilise the same creative language but nuance the purpose across vastly diverse intentions. Works of art are also the outcome of ‘designerly’ thinking processes, and of course designed products will have an aesthetic, sharing creative values. In the creative language we have in common, the artistic elements are the foundations of visual creativity and design principles are our creative building blocks within this shared grammar of creativity. Consequently, both art and design creative processes are values driven, developing critical, flexible, imaginative, innovative, original and purposeful skills and outcomes.
Ged Gast, Creativity Consultant and Past President of NSEAD
Dan China, Art and Design Education Advisor
Prof. Andy Ash, IOE and President of NSEAD
John Childs, Past President of NSEAD and OCR Principal Moderator
Dr Gary Granville, Professor Emeritus at National College of Art and Design, Dublin
Michele Gregson, NSEAD General Secretary and CEO
Greg Hodgson, CEO at Edge Gain Ltd
Dr Iain Macdonald, NSEAD Vice President, Associate Professor and Head of Design Innovation at Maynooth University
Dr Susan Scurlock MBE, Director at Primary Engineering
Sara Shafiei, Associate Professor at The Bartlett
Elysia Thorpe and Stella Fong, The Design Museum
If you need any information about the Design in Education SIG please contact [javascript protected email address] (NSEAD Research and Policy Officer).
This SIG was formed in 2017-2019, and reformed in January 2024.
If you would like to find out more about this SIG and the resources they created please email Sophie Leach and visit the Design in Education section on the NSEAD website.
Future meeting dates will be confirmed here and in the NSEAD Newsletter.
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