- Is it important to have a design education?
Let me start with my blunt answer.
Heck yes.
If you're watching this, you already know how critical
it is to expand your knowledge and learn new skills.
So in some ways, I'm preaching to the converted.
Design is not a hobby.
It's not as hard as heart surgery,
but it takes technical, conceptual,
visual, and verbal skills.
It requires a knowledge of design history,
ways of evaluating a problem and finding a rich solution,
and how to design for print, or put together a website.
That education comes from a college setting,
online training, or on-the-job learning.
As the head of the graduate department at Art Center,
one of the best design schools in the world,
I'm a strong believer in a college or online education.
But is it necessary?
I've heard the argument that Bill Gates
didn't graduate from college.
That's Bill Gates, not 50% of the population.
Now, the Gates Foundation is working hard
to increase college attendance.
A college education enriches your experience.
It gives you the time and tools to become a better designer,
exposes you to things you never considered,
and surrounds you with like-minded people.
I have a friend who didn't attend college.
As a graphic designer, she said
I know how to use InDesign and Photoshop.
Why should I bother?
She went to one community college course and dropped out,
saying I don't want someone to tell me how to do design.
Over the years, she's designed some
flyers for a friend's band,
invitations to baby showers, and business cards for friends.
Every project ended badly.
The client was mad because the work was late,
didn't print correctly, or nobody noticed it.
If she had stayed in school,
by graduation she would have learned
how to make these things work.
A college education exposes a designer to other ideas.
It's an instance of you don't know what you don't know.
It's a place where you can take a class on anthropology
and your entire idea of the world changes.
Or you learn about a new way to find a great idea
that you never considered.
I would not have had the career I did without my education.
But I also would never have made the contacts I needed.
That degree is more than a piece of paper that says
you went to school.
It's the thing that opens doors.
The professors are the people in the industry
that make the connections for a student
to find the right job and meet their design heroes.
And when you begin teaching, you get to do the same thing
for the next generation using your education
and contacts to make incredible designers.