Teaching Context
Since 2022, I have been immersed in the world of design education, with a background in graphic design (BFA, United States) and visual communication (MA, United Kingdom). Growing up in the Pearl River Delta area in South China, my cultural lens is shaped by the rapid urbanization and the intersection of traditional and contemporary influences in the region. This context—rooted in the complexities of my cultural background—has pushed me to embrace graphic design as a critical and investigative practice, moving away from its often reductionist role as a commercial or aesthetic service.
In my teaching, I aim to engage students in a practice that is experimental, diverse, and rooted in critical thinking. My approach integrates various learning environments, providing students with the flexibility to experiment and question the conventions of design. It’s not just about learning how to produce aesthetically pleasing work but understanding design as an exploratory tool for deeper social and cultural questions.
Evaluation
Design education is often entrenched in a set of global assumptions that, at times, stifle new ways of thinking and doing. Graphic design be reimagined as research rather than mere output production: “graphic design can function as a form of research and investigation, pushing the boundaries of its discipline to create meaningful, thought-provoking work that engages with larger societal questions” (Van der Velden, 2006). This resonates deeply with how I see the role of design in my classroom: as an inquiry-driven practice that provokes thought, challenges norms, and opens up new avenues of reflection.
Yet, there is still a pervasive struggle for students to step outside traditional, commercial design paradigms. The feedback I have received often points to the difficulty in breaking free from familiar templates of commercial success. As one student mentioned, “Learning to view design as a way to challenge societal issues was a huge shift. It’s no longer just about making things look nice but engaging in a critical dialogue through design.” These sentiments reinforce the importance of a shift toward critical design pedagogy.
Designer and Educator Danah Abdulla sheds light on an important challenge that persists in design education today: the dominance of Eurocentric frameworks that marginalize voices from non-Western perspectives. In Design Struggles, Abdulla writes, “design is often shaped by dominant global perspectives, which exclude alternative epistemologies and cultural understandings” (Abdulla, 2021). This critique echoes in my experience working with students from various global contexts, especially those from the Global South, who often feel disconnected from a curriculum that doesn’t reflect their own cultural narratives. In response, I have deliberately integrated decolonial perspectives into my teaching, urging students to critique design as a vehicle for perpetuating or resisting power structures.
In design research and curriculum design, figures like Giovanni Anceschi and Massimo Botta’s call for an inclusive, cross-border approach to design research. They argue that, “these multiple approaches reflect the complexity and evolving nature of the design discipline” (Anceschi & Botta, 2021). This notion has propelled me to encourage students to work collaboratively with peers from diverse cultural and geographical contexts, forming a rich exchange of ideas that transcends boundaries and offers alternative ways of thinking about design.
Implications
The evolution of my teaching practice underscores the need for a global redesign of design pedagogy—one that embraces diverse methodologies, challenges cultural monopolies, and allows students to confront the intersections between design, culture, and politics. This evolution also means expanding the scope of design education to be more inclusive, critical, and interdisciplinary. A key implication here is the need to rethink design as an active site of resistance, not just a passive response to consumer demands.
Action Plan
- Broaden Curriculum Content: Move beyond Western-centric design narratives by introducing global design case studies, especially from marginalized communities and cultures. This will provide students with a richer understanding of design’s role in different cultural and political contexts.
- Building International Collaborations: Build partnerships with design schools in the Global South and other underrepresented regions to expand students’ worldviews and to reinforce cross-border collaborations that reflect a more nuanced approach to design.
- Embed Critical and Decolonial Thinking: Encourage students to explore design as a tool for social transformation. This includes analyzing how design can both reproduce and challenge power structures, ultimately empowering students to reshape the design discipline through critical engagement.
- Cultivate an Inquiry-Based Approach: provoke the notion that design is about asking big questions, not just providing solutions. By embracing speculative design, as Dunne and Raby suggest, students will be better equipped to use design to propose alternatives to the status quo (Dunne & Raby, 2013).
References:
Abdulla, D. (2021). Disciplinary Disobedience. In C. Mareis & N. Paim (Eds.), Design Struggles: Intersecting Histories, Pedagogies, and Perspectives (pp. 40-55). Valiz.
Anceschi, G. & Botta, M. (2021). “Hypermodern? Perspectives for the Design Education, Research and Practice.” In Multiple Ways to Design Research: Research Cases that Reshape the Design Discipline (pp. 18-35). Swiss Design Network. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/88840515/Multiple_Ways_to_Design_Research_Research_cases_that_reshape_the_design_discipline [Accessed 1 February 2025].
Dunne, D., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. MIT Press.
Van der Velden, D. (2006). Research and Destroy: Graphic Design as Investigation. [online] Available at: https://readings.design/PDF/vanderVelden_research-distroy.pdf [Accessed 1 February 2025].