What I learnt at design school
Originally posted March 28, 2014
abnormal sleep patterns + a refined beer pallet
Over the past 4 years I have spent 80% of my time on campus at Emily Carr University studying Industrial Design. This has been the most intense, frustrating, self doubting, passionate experience of my 25 year life. My design education is only now coming to a close + this is what I’ve learnt.
Write
It’s time to step away from your computer, your cellphone, the television. Technology in general. Grab a pen, a notebook and start writing. It doesn’t matter what. Write about how you fell asleep in the lecture hall, how the toilet stall had no toilet paper, your next great design, your one night stand. Whatever it is, write it down. These are moments and thoughts that are exclusive to you, not to the world via the internet. Not everything needs to be shared — yet everything needs to be expressed.
Most people will tell you that sketching is the most important skill you can have with a pencil. Yet the passion that lies within words can not easily be translated to images. It is the passion that employs a designer, it is the passion that drives a design. & these ideas you write down will become a DesignBank one day when you have a fleeting memory of an idea skims the top of your head.
Fail
You’ve heard it time and time again. Fail. If you don’t know how to fail, you don’t know how to succeed. Being able to pick yourself up after a miserable critique is all part of the design school experience, not to mention prepping you for the “real world” where your ideas will more than likely be tossed aside.
Be kind
Those of you who know me are probably laughing right now. While I may be a prickly and blunt dude at times, I have picked up on the fact that no one is going to want to work with you if you’re an asshole, which brings me to my next point…
Collaborate
Your school without a doubt has a studio space. Utilize it. There are few times in life where you get to be put in a space, allowed to create whatever the hell you want, and are surrounded by like minded individuals (some of who will probably change the game as you know it)
Stand up for your ideas
The number of times I’ve seen great projects cast aside by teachers because students do not show confidence in their work is discouraging. Yet there are countless times, heinous projects were given praise due to the confidence of the designer.
Ask questions + listen
Not all your teachers are geniuses, hell most of them might be down right awful. They still have a wealth of knowledge for you to tap into. Maybe your CAD teacher doesn’t aid you in CAD rendering, but gives you a great resource for manufacturing in your city.
Read the news
If you don’t know what’s going on in the world — you have no right attempting to be in design.
Pull all nighters
You’re never going to feel as if you’ve done enough work. While staying up all night staring at a screen, sketching + making maquettes isn’t going to produce the most high quality of work — it will push your creative limits.
Have a good fucking time
Chances are you (or your parents) are paying for this, so you should probably enjoy the experience. If you don’t want to be there — leave. There is undoubtly someone that wants your spot more than you and will work harder at it.
Taken from Medium https://medium.com/@sethmparker/what-i-learnt-at-design-school-e0b339eb4703
