Change is imminent; change is emergent

A Critical Reflection on the Graphic Design Curriculum Re-design

As an alumna and current part-time faculty, I would like to voice my opinions and concerns re- Angela Tank, MFA
garding the redesign of the Graphic Design BS curriculum to a Graphic Design BFA. Although January 26, 2010
the redesign process may have been borne out of necessity, it offers an incredible opportunity to University of Minnesota
College of Design
create a more flexible curriculum that will be effective now and relevant in the future.
Creating a flexible and adaptive program not only serves our needs as educators, but aligns
with what we expect of our students, and that which the design field expects of incoming profes-
sionals. The new curricular model should model that which AIGA lists as one of the trends for
design, ensuring that the designed solution is able to “meet the growing need for anticipation of
problem and solution rather than solving known problems”1. In order to anticipate the problem, 1. http://www.aiga.org/content.
rather than solve those which we currently have, we need to think beyond the intended launch date cfm/designer-of-2015-trends
of Fall 2011 and project the objectives of this curriculum well into the future.
Consider briefly the incoming set of students who will first experience this curriculum. They
were born in 1993. They don’t know a world without Google or cell phones. They were 8 years
old when the Twin Towers collapsed. They are preparing to become designers in 2015–and yet,
we are using the needs of today’s students to benchmark their undetermined needs. (This is to say
nothing about the incoming students of 2025, who are currently 3 years old and already under-
stand how a computer mouse works). If we want this program to exist at least as long as our
current curriculum has, we need to think in terms of sustainable longevity rather than conceive of
a solution to an immediate problem.

What are others doing?

A brief look at other BFA programs in design can offer some insight into how other institutions
have addressed the need for adaptive and flexible curricular structures. It is common for course
names to reflect an openness of content and while supporting a sense of progression throughout
a program. The School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has
a program incredibly similar to ours, with a series of four core classes (Intermediate Graphic
Design I, II, and Advanced Graphic Design I and II) preceded by foundations classes and supple- 2. http://courses.illinois.edu/
mented with electives and materials classes2. They note their responsibility to pair students with cis/2009/fall/programs/under-
grad/faa/graphic.html
faculty–practicing designers themselves–who can test and improve the “aesthetic vision, technical,
communicative, and evaluative skills” of students in the program3. The Carnegie Mellon School 3. http://www.art.illinois.edu/con-
of Design offers its common thread as a series of four typography courses (Basic, Intermediate, tent/undergraduate
Advanced, and Typography IV) while supplementing that core course work with classes whose
“topics will change based on faculty research and the specializations of visiting designers”4. Each
of these institutions have a curriculum that recognizes the need to understand the theory of the 4. http://design.cmu.edu/show_
program.php?s=1&t=3
discipline while addressing current changes in the profession.
Within our own college, the Bachelor of Design in Architecture (BDA) degree program starts
with an overview of fundamentals and historical roots of the profession, followed by two years
primarily composed of loosely-named elective and workshop classes, e.g. “Design Workshops”,
“Design in the Digital Age,” and “Design Fundamentals I and II”5. These course names may 5. http://arch.design.umn.edu/un-
translate as vague to those outside of the program, but speak to the allowance of flexibility and dergraduate/undergraduate_admis-
sions_bda.html
the room for change within the current curriculum. Similar to the previously discussed institu-
tions, the CDes School of Architecture states that it must support its mission through a “strong 6. http://arch.design.umn.edu/
faculty composed of academics and practicing architects” in order to treat this design field as both overview/
a research-based discipline and a professional career6. In fact, the curriculum of this program was
recently reconsidered in 2008 to allow for a more adaptive structure that “builds on tradition, em- 7. http://arch.design.umn.edu/
braces challenges, and expects change”7, winning an AIA award in the process. UMN_release_final2.pdf

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From BS to BFA
As unexpected as the idea is, I believe that the structure we currently have in place can actually ser-
vice the ever-changing needs of designers. Looking at our core Graphic Design I-IV series, there
is a built in flexibility for how we address timely conceptual issues as they relate to text and image,
identity, packaging, and campaigns. Rather than more narrowly defining the topic of each class–
changing the course names and structure in the process–we simply need to more critically consider
the content of those core classes and the project relevancy for design students at that point in time.
In fact, I argue theses classes could be reduced to their core, simply naming them Graphic Design
I, II, III and IV, and putting more responsibility and capability in the hands of the instructor to
shape these classes as they deem relevant.
Tuning in to student concerns, there seems to be little disagreement regarding the appropriate-
ness of the GD I-IV courses. Rather, there is significant disgruntlement with the Computer Appli-
cation I and II classes, and the lack of an integrated ‘interactive” approach within the program as a
whole. To address this issue, I propose that we focus more intently on redesigning our elective of-
ferings, creating more classes that exist as “Special Topics in Design” or “Design Workshops,” as
we ’ve seen in other institutions and within our own college. Classes such as these would allow for
the current instructor (full-time, adjunct, or graduate) to highlight and share their own expertise,
be it research or practice related. Rather than solving the current problem focusing on “interactiv-
vity” and “web” design, this approach would allow for a solution to fulfill the needs of designers
5-10 years from now, whose particular areas of focus are yet to be determined. Furthermore, these
courses provide the opportunity to engage students in semester-long service-learning opportuni-
ties or assist University programs in need of design student expertise (more important now that
ByDesign is defunct). In any case, they diversify the student experience, allowing for a more
expansive experience and unique portfolio, while ensuring that a complete curriculum overhaul
would not be needed within the next decade.
On the other hand, there are two significant gaps in our current curriculum: the absence of an
introductory typography class (prior to portfolio review) and a secondary portfolio review fo-
cused on the students’ thesis work. Typography is essential to the profession of design, and should
be used to distinguish those students who will pass the initial portfolio review from those who
will not. As students progress through a BFA program, they typically receive additional guidance
and advising to definite their conceptual focus, culminating in a thesis or capstone project. This is
again something in which full-time faculty can provide their expertise, but also somewhere where
(as seen in CDes’s School of Architecture) actively practicing adjuncts can subsidize the students’
understanding of their area of focus. This second “portfolio review” is less about determining
one ’s success or failure within the program, and more about assisting in the refinement of concep-
tual ideas as they relate to one’s in-progress thesis work. It also would be a prime opportunity to
engage the students with local professionals. Again, we have some structures in place to support
this (Senior Seminar and Senior Portfolio); by carefully reconsidering the purpose of these classes,
we may be able to refocus our curriculum to a BFA with ease.

Embracing change
I have significant loyalty to and faith in the faculty and students in our graphic design program.
I believe that this opportunity to reflect upon our knowledge of what works well, what is less ef-
fective, and what we would like to be doing 10-15 years from now can result in the creation of an
effective and sustainable curriculum. In order for this change to be effective, it must be embraced
from within, from faculty who dedicate themselves to a continual process of critique and renewal
of our special topics and offerings.
According to AIGA, the designer of 2015 (the first graduating class of this BFA curriculum)
“must be able to draw on experience and knowledge from a broad range of disciplines,” in order
to create designs that are not only beautiful, but which address strategic problems in a variety of
formats–both tangible and intangible1. We have a significant advantage in fostering this, given that

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we are a program within a liberal arts environment and staffed by a variety of practicing profes-
sionals and academics alike. However, for this to truly work, we must decide to keep the structure
of our core classes consistent while allowing for flexibility within materials and elective offerings.
On this note, I argue that the change we need is less revolutionary than it is evolutionary. We
have a solid foundation on which to build, but need to keep a far-sighted vision in mind as we
work toward a solution. By using our pool of resources that includes research-focused faculty,
diversely skilled graduate students, and practicing adjuncts, and our pre-existing flexible structure,
we can create a self-sustaining, emergent solution that will outlast the current problem.
Finally, it is understood that there is college and departmental pressure to more succinctly
define what it is that we do in our program and in each of our classes. This seems like an empty
argument, especially when we take a closer look at the nomenclature of similar programs, within
and beyond our own college. However, this challenge does call on our Graphic Design program
to better articulate our mission and identity, both to ourselves and those outside of our program.
Such a call supports the need for more public presentation space so that we–faculty and students
alike–can do what designers do: show our work. This can happen physically as well as digitally (in 8. http://art.umn.edu/courses/
fact, the Arts 5400 BFA Seminar does this)8–but it needs to happen regardless. For ultimately, in arts5400/
the end, it doesn’t matter what you name a class, it matters what you do and what comes out of it.

amt, 1.26.10