The South African Department of Higher Education recognise HEIs as having a critical role to play in training students to be able to respond to the social, cultural and economic development needs of a transforming society (Maphosa, Mudzielwana, Netshifhefhe, 2014). Design education has a responsibility to respond to this call, and to equip students with the knowledge and the skills to “address the national imperatives of social cohesion, job creation and community engagement” (Chmela-Jones, 2013). While there is a dearth of literature on communication design education for sustainability in South Africa, two scholarly papers have investigated ways in which to evolve design curricula to meet the changing needs of industry.
Communication design lecturers from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) and the Vaal University of Technology (VUT) wrote these papers. Although the educators conducted independent investigations, they were both motivated by a nation-wide directive from the South African Council for Higher Education for all HEIs to re-curriculate their programmes to comply with the Higher Education Qualifications Framework (Cadle, 2011; Chmela-Jones, 2013). The lecturers saw this as an opportunity to move away from the traditional approach to design education by making it relevant to the changing practices in
industry. In order to develop an industry-responsive curriculum, Cadle and Chmela-Jones investigate future trends in the communication design industry. Drawing from the AIGA’s forecast report, Designer of 2015 Trends, the educators identify a growing shift towards socially responsible design. “Collaborating with users” and “Designing for sustainability” are two trends that relate directly to promoting social consciousness amongst designers (Cadle, 2011:4). To respond to this, sustainability and human-centered design are seen as two critical subjects for inclusion into communication design curricula. Human-centered design is a creative approach to problem solving where designers collaborate with communities to overcome their challenges (IDEO, 2015).
Cadle (2011:8) acknowledges that due to media coverage, issues of sustainability and human-centeredness “are often implicit” in the educational environment. However, to advance students’ engagement with these important design concepts, he believes that they “need to be given appropriate emphasis and consideration in a formal curriculum structure” (ibid).
Cadle (2011:7) associates these trends with a “new model graphic designer”, a designer who embodies several core competencies. To prepare graduates to thrive in a challenging industry, educators must structure the curriculum to ensure that students meet these competencies. The competencies as defined by the AIGA’s Designer of 2015 Competencies report, that speaks directly to “Collaborating with users” and “Designing for sustainability”, are presented in Table 2.17.
Table 2.17: Designer of 2015 competencies (Adapted from AIGA, 2008)
Competencies required for designers to be able to collaborate with users and practice design for sustainability:
• broad understanding of issues related to the cognitive, social, cultural, technological and economic contexts for design;
• ability to respond to audience contexts recognising physical, cognitive, cultural and social human factors that shape design decisions;
• understanding of how systems behave, and aspects that contribute to sustainable products, strategies and practices;
• ability to work in a global environment with understanding of cultural preservation; • ability to collaborate productively in large interdisciplinary teams; and
• understanding of ethics in practice.
The objectives of the principles of sustainability are reflected in the above list of competencies, which set out to shape a design community that can tackle complex issues in creative ways. This further highlights the need for a comprehensive set of guidelines that educators can use in their teaching to properly prepare students for industry.
best practice in communication design education at NMMU. Table 2.18 presents the ten core areas that students need to be exposed to through the curricula.
Table 2.18: Guidelines for developing a best practice curriculum for the 21st Century (Adapted
from Cadle, 2011:8) • Breadth of knowledge • Collaboration • Critical thinking • Design principles • Design systems • Human-centeredness • Interdisciplinarity • Sustainability • Technical skills • Technological integration
While this framework suggests what the curriculum should include, Cadle does not provide practical solutions to how this can be achieved. Chmela-Jones (2013) however investigates practical ways to promote the uptake of socially responsible design practices in the communication design curriculum. The proposed solution is the integration of a human- centered design process.
During the VUT students’ first year of study, the focus is on developing “basic conceptual and technical skills”, and they are taught to apply a “typical design process” to all briefs (Chmela- Jones, 2013:38). This process focuses on the design artefact as the outcome, without any consideration for possible negative impacts during the design process. To advance this design process to include a “socially responsible dimension”, Chmela-Jones proposes that students rather adopt a “human-centered design process” (2013:40). Figure 2.12 presents both design processes, and highlights additional factors in the human-centered design process. These include: collaboration with users; awareness of the context in which the design will exist; constant consideration of the designs possible impact; and a focus on the social aspect of the design outcome rather than the aesthetics. To apply a human-centered design process, Chmela-Jones identifies the importance for students to be given briefs that address real-world problems, where they engage with real users with the objective of having positive social impact. At VUT this design approach was integrated into a five-week module themed around human-centered design. According to Chmela-Jones the students responded positively to this module, producing a variety of successful outcomes. Therefore, due to the adoption of the human-centered design process among students, Chmela-Jones believes that integrating socially responsible practices should become a core teaching and learning strategy (ibid). This is expected to advance the communication design curricula towards meeting the requirements, as set out by the Department of Higher Education, to contribute to a better future for all South Africans.
Figure 2.12: Typical design process and a human-centered design process (Adapted from Chmela-Jones, 2013:38&40)
These papers are relevant to this study because they highlight the importance of cultivating communication design pedagogy that promotes sustainable literacy amongst students. This is seen not only through providing knowledge of concepts related to DfS, but more importantly by giving students the opportunity to put these concepts into practice. While some design educators across Africa are confronting ways to update the curricula to formally include DfS, a lot more needs to be done. This is especially evident in the Cape Town educational landscape. The next section will look into the current offering of Cape Town communication design courses.