How should tomorrow's designers be schooled?
T
One day all designers may be this shape
The T-shaped designer sounds like another hunk of American business jargon but, says Rhymer Rigby, if designers, educators and business leaders don’t pay heed to it, the UK could lose a crucial competitive edge.
In an age when management buzz words come and go so fast that by the time they have been run up the flagpole the world is already saluting something else, the idea of a T-shaped designer sounds like a jargonistic conceit. But there is a meaning behind the mantra, as Lesley Morris, head of skills at the Design Council, explains: “The stem of the T is the depth of knowledge in their specialist subject while the horizontal cap of the T represents the breadth – their ability to make their method, skills and thinking work in a different context.”
Like 97% of such buzz words, the T-shaped designer originated in America, where design consultancies like IDEO and Jump have identified a need for, in IDEO’s words, “specialists with a passion and empathy for people and for other subject areas.” The T motif taps into another of the hottest management trends in America: design thinking or, to put it another way, the use of design processes and methods to foster innovation and grow businesses.
There is some debate about whether design thinking is simply an extension of traditional design skills or a new discipline. The best designers, from Jamie Hewlett, the award-winning designer of the cartoon rock band Gorillaz, to Ralph Gilles, the creative genius behind Chrysler’s über-saloon the 300C, have often driven innovation and added financial value.
But the application of design thinking to an array of corporate and social problems does represent a cultural and educational challenge to British designers, to the system that educates designers and to British industry. As Morris says, “The idea that design is a way of thinking about a problem and not a purist skill hasn’t caught on in Britain as much as it has in the US.”
There is some concern among designers that this new breed of polymaths or hybrids will dilute what makes design distinctive. One man’s polymath is another’s jack of all trades and master of precious little. “Some designers won’t want to broaden out,” says Morris, “they’ll be happier remaining in their specialism.” Jonathan Ive, the British designer behind the iPod, is of this school. The world of MBAs and general management didn’t suit him. Yet this attitude hasn’t stopped him joining the Apple board as senior vice president of product.
But design thinking – and the idea of the T-shaped designer – has led some American business schools to broaden their curriculum, some American design schools to change their approach and even inspired b-schools and d-schools to collaborate. The French business school INSEAD is now allied with the Pasadena design college, Art Center. Design thinking has begun to influence design education in some of the UK’s EU rivals, with design academies in Eindhoven and Helsinki pioneering this approach.
This poses something of a dilemma for the UK because – and let’s have no false modesty here – when it comes to the quality of design education Britain is a world leader. Equally, complacency isn’t an option – note the use of the word ‘still’. The trouble with being near the top of the pile at anything is that, if you sit back, there’s only one way to go. Britain has a proud and productive tradition of producing design purists – people who are great at design, wonderful craft-based solo specialists.
In the specialism of design, our schools are probably better than America’s… But they’re better at the broader picture where design thinking fits into innovation Lesley Morris, head of skills, Design Council
British designers are among the world’s most famous. Apart from Ive, the most famous include IDEO’s president Tim Brown and Ford’s head of design, Peter Horbury. All three now work in America, a fact that has caused some patriotic agitation. But their Atlantic crossing seems as inevitable as Michelangelo’s move to Rome, once he had decided he wanted a chapel ceiling to paint. Strong as the system that trained them is, this doesn’t obscure the fact that, says Morris, “the Americans are better at the broader picture where design and design thought fit into innovation.”
Strengthening the link between design and innovation was at the heart of last year’s Cox Review. The report, from Sir George Cox, chairman of the Design Council, proposed a network of regional centres of excellence that offer multidisciplinary courses combining management studies, engineering and technology with design and the creative arts. The word ‘centres’ conjures up images of actual buildings but, Morris says, “they could vary from new types of courses – possibly in design or design management – to creating virtual or physical centres that use multidisciplinarity as a driver of innovation.”
To make sure that Britain was up to date with the best practice in multidisciplinary education and assess how relevant and adaptable these models were to the UK, Morris led a fact-finding delegation of staff from UK design and business schools to America in September 2006. On their five-day trip the delegation visited Stanford University’s well-known d.school (led by David Kelley, the co-founder of IDEO), the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design in Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all of which have successfully combined design and business.
So what did they learn? For some, the spectre of gifted designers being turned into mediocre T-shaped hybrids receded. Professor Penny Sparke, pro-vice-chancellor (arts) at Kingston University, was convinced that the UK should learn from what the delegation saw at Stanford’s d.school, which takes students from the university’s other masters programmes. “We need to introduce a much more multidisciplinary approach in design schools. In Stanford’s d.school, design isn’t a single discipline. We need to train specialists, but we need to teach them to have their feelers out. It isn’t necessarily about training people in all disciplines. It’s more about being sympathetic and sensitive to the needs of those who work in them.”
In IDEO’s view, vertical specialist depth was acquired at undergraduate level while the horizontal understanding of other disciplines and professional contexts could often be developed in a post-graduate, masters-style course or through early experience in the workplace.
Martin Binks, professor of entrepreneurial development and director of the Institute for Enterprise and Innovation at Nottingham University, favours a model where “design becomes part of what you’re working on,” which, he says, gets students out of their comfort zone and allows the transfer of tacit knowledge, so you get something akin to the Stanford approach but in three dimensions.
“The basic part is that tacit knowledge is a three-dimensional activity and that’s where the future lies. The focus is on trying to do that on a larger scale. Entrepreneurship is very close to creative design.” The danger, he admits, is that multidisciplinarianism can be taken too far. “Some American courses try to give you both an MBA and a full design qualification.”
John Miller, director of design at University College Falmouth, believes that the UK has always produced skilled collaborators. But he does concede that places like Stanford do a better job of communicating this through such concepts as their T-shaped people. The Institute of Design in Chicago has deliberately set out to ‘demystify’ design to bring it into mainstream business practice.
We need multidisciplinary environments where design becomes part of what you’re working on. Entrepreneurship is very close to creative design Martin Binks, professor, Nottingham University
The failure of communication, Miller believes, may even extend to the graduates themselves. “Designers need to learn to speak a different language which is neither design-speak nor the sort of consultancy-speak coming out of Stanford or the IIT’s Institute of Design.” Miller agrees with the Cox Review that designers need to interact with businesses of all sizes. “Our graduates need to be able to go into companies with 50 or 100 employees, understand their needs and show how design can address them.”
Professor Clare Johnston, head of the textile department at the Royal College of Art, admits: “There’s still something of a problem with how business and design interact. Rather than being seen as a craft, it needs to be seen as part of the division of labour. At the moment, design seems to see itself just in terms of creativity. We need to take it one step further without taking the pizzazz out of it.”
The intricate way higher education and business are entwined in America may, to some extent, be a cultural thing. An MBA is a prerequisite for many jobs in the US in a way that it still isn’t in the UK. America is blessed with a large number of multinationals and wealthy individuals with the means and the will to sponsor schools and universities. The scale of sponsorship is so vast and continuous that some programme leaders actually refer to their industrial sponsors as their ‘clients’ and their students as their ‘product’. For Miller, such sponsorship is not the main aim of collaboration but he does admit, “We need to be smarter about attracting this sort of funding.”
The absence of such strong links in the UK isn’t necessarily the fault of designers or their educators. The MIT Media Lab has an intriguing sponsorship model. Companies donate around £100,000 as part of an industrial consortium sharing intellectual property and have access to the MediaLab’s pool of talent. Innovative as the MIT model may be, the institute has found it harder in Europe, where fewer multinationals have such deep pockets and business culture is more inward-looking and secretive.
In Britain, where the Design Council’s research suggests that eight out of ten businesses don’t see design as a strategic advantage, design thinking is almost as much of a challenge to business as it is to designers. Many business executives might agree with the US design agency who said that watching designers give business advice was like “watching a cat bark”. The irony here is that IDEO’s Tim Brown, the poster boy for design thinking, learned his craft in the British design education system. But his gospel is yet to spread through British boardrooms. The obvious danger here is that, even if Britain did groom thousands of Brownalikes, they would, like Brown, have to cross the Atlantic to make their mark.
If design thinking is really going to sharpen Britain’s competitive edge, T-shaped designers have to find kindred spirits in T-shaped business people. In an economy where, according to a survey by the Work Foundation, 57% of employees think their bosses lack vision (and where even the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development concluded, this year, that British firms were hampered in the global market by a dearth of effective leaders), finding business leaders who can see beyond their vertical strength in manipulating Excel spreadsheets might prove more problematic than in the US.
British business will soon be put to the test. The Higher Education Funding Council for England is currently studying proposals from various parties to fund varying kinds of centres of excellence. “Some of what Cox stipulated is already happening,” says Sparke. “We’re seeing the Royal College of Art linking up with Imperial College.” Other projects – notably the ambitious redevelopment of Northumbria University – are steps in the direction that Cox outlined. At the same time, the Design Council is reviewing basic design education to examine how that too needs to change.
Looking at design education as a whole – at school and further and higher education level – Morris says, “We don’t have the option of maintaining the status quo.” Johnston believes that the UK must not lose the depth for which it is world-renowned – just add the breadth offered by rivals. The specialisation of British designers is a global draw. That’s why so many young designers come from overseas to study here. Johnston says: “The quality of what we offer explains why some businesses are almost obsessive about hunting for UK graduates.”
But after touring the US, Johnston thinks there is one lesson that British educators need to heed. “One of the things that struck us is the extraordinary confidence they have in the system and the amazing PR and gloss.” This is not, she says, intended as a criticism: it is simply an observation that the traditional British approach of dissembling, blushing and trying above all not to draw attention to yourself may not be the best way to do business in a global economy where others are perfectly happy to shout.
Ultimately, the driving force behind the need for change is the global economy, especially the massive investments in design now being made by China, India and Korea. But, as educators in China and India privately admit, too many of their young designers are taught to ask how and not why. The ability of British designers to ask why – and for that question to be heard in a broad business context – could prove a serious competitive advantage.
The Stanford view
George Kembel, executive director of Stanford University’s d. school, on why we need a different way of learning.
Why is the d.school important?
In the 21st century, it will be impossible to run innovative businesses without being more human-centred and prototype-driven. Universities, businesses and countries are all hungry to figure out how to be more innovative and are very receptive to the idea that design thinking can help create an innovative culture.
How do students learn?
By doing. The students do most of their work in interdisciplinary teams, get out in the field, make observations and iterate prototypes. Students are guided by industry executives and experts. We want students to leave confident in their personal innovation process and with greater empathy with different disciplines.
What type of projects do you work on?
Real-world messy problems where solutions are not obvious, such as lighting for developing countries or water systems for rural farmers.
Are there disagreements within the multidisciplinary groups?
Yes – then the students must decide what’s important and how to move forward. This helps create future innovators who will be breakthrough thinkers and doers.
Changing spaces
One of the less expected themes that recurred throughout the UK educators’ fact-finding mission to the US was space.
In essence, educators and designers felt that having the right space – the kind of informal area that has made Starbucks increasingly popular with American teenagers – was key to creativity. For James More, dean of design at Northumbria University, the type of accommodation at the schools and agencies visited strongly affected the process of innovation. The d.school, which moves to a new building in 2009, is planning to incorporate sofas, coffee tables, large tables, common areas, flexible spaces (walls on wheels) and breakout spaces.
Collaborative, non-territorial space is easier to legislate for in a land as vast as the US but it’s a lesson British educators would do well to heed.
Article first published in Design Council Magazine, Issue 1, Winter 2006