Education of a designer

I often get asked by young people, especially those who see the need to go beyond the formulaic design education, what books or courses should we peruse to be better designers. This is irrespective of the design discipline they are from. I’d like to settle some of these questions in this post.

As in any discipline, a design practitioner is a product of her environment, socioeconomic background, gender, personal choices and exposure of the larger world. Specialized education is important but its a small part of the overall aspect of being a designer.

A formal education in design, especially from a “reputable” design school does two things. One, it give a structured environment for the learner to develop the mental constructs and processes necessary to start thinking in a designer-ly way. The quality of the school decides how thorough and open ended this structure is, but you do get a leg up compared to an untrained mind.

The second thing a formal design education does is open the initial doors for gainful employment. Again, the quality of employment depends on the pedigree of the school (not necessarily the quality of its education). If employment is the ultimate end goal starting with formal design education is a good choice.

However, design education is but the beginning of a designers professional journey. Most designers feel a gap in their education while on the job or while working with inter-disciplinary colleagues or teams. This is where the limits of formal education become explicit. A design education will get you going but its just that, a booster shot to get you started.

Like any field of human activity, learning is a continuous process. It doesn’t begin by formal education, neither does it end there. No matter where you are in this process, learning needs continuous engagement with the wider world, our environment, society, politics, arts and yourself. The more you engage with the wider world the more you will learn. They say, connect the dots, well you need to first collect the dots in order to connect them. People at higher levels of the hierarchy have access to systems, information and exposure i.e. dots so they may come across as more creative, or intelligent, but this is rarely the case. Creativity is abundantly distributed in all of us, we need to feed it by boosting our engagement with the outside world.

So how to learn as a designer? Not necessarily by reading design books or taking courses, but by watching movies, watch movies in different languages, listening to music, reading random books, travelling, learning new skills, talking to people beyond our immediate circle, looking outside the window, doing nothing, going to public marches, learning a new language, unplugging devices, fixing things, smelling flowers, watching sun sets/rises, going to theatre, writing letters, watching people work, talking to children, and so on.

Step outside the world of design to be a better designer. Do the boring stuff, it makes your mind revolt and come up with ideas to do things differently. And most of all be honest to yourself and know who you really are and what is important to you.

I hope this helps.