GRAPHIC DESIGNING COURSE

Why Are Students Opting For Offbeat Courses Like Design Technology, According To An Expert

Summary

Equipping oneself with relevant, distinctive, growing, and out-of-the-box talents, is thus, a vital feature for young graduates hoping to establish their own businesses or acquire solid employment

Design aspirants are now seeking out design programmes that have a new emphasis on problem-solving, critical thinking and systems design. They want to move from human-centric design to planet-centric design. They are looking to work on social issues and strategy building

Unconventional career choices could be tough at first, but, the perks linked with these are promising. Today's work opportunities were not available just a few years ago. Similarly, the rate of technological advancement would continue to create millions of new employment in the future that we are unable to imagine today.

Equipping oneself with relevant, distinctive, growing, and out-of-the-box talents, is thus, a vital feature for young graduates hoping to establish their own businesses or acquire solid employment. Students have gained the confidence and fortitude to pursue their interests as parents, educational institutions, and the government encourage them to go the additional mile, think of new ideas, and seek new career paths.

Years ago, whenever you encountered the word ‘ DESIGN’, you had visions of fashion design, interiors, and graphic design. Maybe Car design, too. You would imagine the discipline to be visually exciting and aesthetically appealing.

Design aspirants are now seeking out design programmes that have a new emphasis on problem-solving, critical thinking and systems design. They want to move from human-centric design to planet-centric design. They are looking to work on social issues and strategy building.

The other new development of design disciplines is the blurring of borders. Designers who are stuck in silos are now looking to do projects across several disciplines of design. Interdisciplinary design is the current favorite amongst students who are looking to have a broader view of design issues and have the ability to collaborate with not only different designers but also different professionals like engineers, management professionals, anthropologists, scientific professionals et al. This new kind of designer has the ability to work across new disciplines and offer multi-dimensional solutions to problems. Interdisciplinary designers are also sought after by start-up businesses who look to hire one kind of designer who can handle product, packaging, website, showrooms, and space design and would rather deal with one kind of designer than five different ones.

Not just your regular UI/UX design, Interaction design straddles the disciplines of product design and digital design. Better interactions are designed, taking into consideration the interaction between man and device, device and device, and device and cloud, also known as the Internet of things or IoT. It is this new cutting-edge, technology-led discipline that has students seeking out such institutions.

Design is morphing into new disciplines and Integrated Communication Design is one such discipline. Traditional programmes of Graphic design and Communication design have lost their mojo, as anyone with knowledge of software apps like Canva and Figma can make excellent graphic design. Graphic design has become templatized so much that you do not need a 4-year course on the subject. Therefore, the emergence of new programmes like Integrated Communication Design focuses on communication with words, visuals, and data. Discovering new ways to present data, where communication is paramount, including video, print, and films. The new integrated communication design is called so as it integrates the analog with the digital, the old with the new, and the pencil with the pixel. Students who already come to join these programmes are proficient in photo manipulation and illustration, so one can avoid repeating these in class.

Design students who look forward to solving the world’s problems like water and sanitation, education, and gender issues are advised to look for Systems thinking courses that are offered in the design programmes. They need to study the importance of small changes making big differences. They develop a bird’s eye view of the problems and are better equipped to give creative solutions that can bring about systemic changes.

Students are advised to seek out such institutions that cater to new-age programmes that are future-ready and current. You will realise their true worth when you look for placements four years after you have joined. Design is headed that way.

Last updated on 05 Jan 2023

16:33 PM

How Typography Can Make A More Inclusive Future

Accessibility towards designing non-Latin scripts, though not quite equal, is steadily evolving and improving as well. Unlike the Latin alphabet, many East Asian character sets (e.G. Chinese and Japanese) necessitate thousands of characters to be usable. The process of designing a Japanese font still requires years of planning, drawing and testing to support the written language’s four character types: Hiragana (phonetic syllabary), Katakana (phonetic syllabary, primarily for loan words), Kanji (ideograms adapted from Chinese Hanzi) and Latin letterforms.

However, workflows have since improved and been accelerated with automation. Checks and revisions are, of course, still necessary, but CJK typefaces can be designed with modular radical components to save precious time and money.

The evolution of type technology has aided in the proliferation of other languages and scripts as well. For example, the development of the OpenType format created new possibilities for a font’s capabilities, including the programming of contextual forms. Before OpenType, languages of the SWANA region like Arabic were roughly constrained to the shape of the em unit and could not fully express the nuances of a calligraphic written language.

Similarly, while it’s fair to criticise what many see as the monopolistic and anti-competitive actions of Adobe, the access and flexibility of multilingual support in their desktop publishing software like InDesign is currently unmatched. As a bilingual graphic designer living and working in Japan, much of my work requires complex typesetting where I combine Latin alphabet fonts with Japanese fonts. Being able to create composite fonts (a feature built into Japanese InDesign) has become a necessary and indispensable part of my work, and allows me to consider new combinations of type choices and layout.

Meet The New Committee Member For The Enterprising Alumni Association, Victoria Reis

Studying at UAL was a surreal experience from the very beginning – especially coming from Venezuela! It was such a massive privilege, which I've got my parents to thank for. I started on short courses (Printing, Composition and Life Drawing), and went on to do a BA in Graphic Communication Design at CSM.

One of the things I loved the most was having the workshops and so much space to experiment and express ideas in. The talks every Tuesday, the events, I even got to attend a Ted Talk! It was always refreshing and motivating to hear directly from the experience of fellow creatives in my field.

At CSM fashion is very present and joining UAL made me realise I had no real understanding of the industry before. Being so close to the fashion students exposed me to their passion and made me appreciate the influence fashion has in the arts. I made many friends in different industries too! From product design, performance, textile, and fashion. The beauty of it was that we could all speak creatively from the heart!

One other very important part of my experience and journey at UAL was to be not only a member of the surf society but the president for a whole year. The connections I made with people that had the same two passions as me have lasted until today and we shared some really fun adventures in the UK and abroad.

After uni, I wasn't sure how to fit my multidisciplinary practice in the graphic industry. I wanted to try print, digital, branding, creative thinking... So many things. So I took some time to explore the industry. I started as a Junior Graphic Designer in the marketing department at GUS, dedicated to rebranding universities. There I worked on my first zine design, The Vibe. Then I moved to The Dubs, where I worked on my first award-winning print book release, The Little Book of Data for Aviva (which won Creativepool’s 2019 Silver and People’s Choice awards for Publishing). Then I joined EventsTag, an experiential advertising start-up. This enabled me to expand my practice to creative thinking, wayfinding, and UI/UX design; I worked as the creative lead for the Room and the Broom Animated Movie Experience at Chessington World of Adventures and the bouncy installation for Monster at Alexandra Palace.

Four years later I decided to set up my own design studio. My partner, Alex Lorimer and I, built Drool Design Studios together, where we aim to collaborate with other creatives without limiting our practice. To push ideas and go beyond the brief. We started with my freelance graphic and creative work and today we are a growing team that covers branding, web design, and marketing services!

My motivation to be a part of the alumni association comes from my personal journey as a creative. Trying to believe in myself and my work whilst battling with insecurities. I don't come from a creative family or a culture that promotes being creative. I didn't have the tools to navigate the industry after graduating, it was my friends from uni and my partner that supported each other. Knowing how that feels I want to make sure I put myself out there to help other creatives, with the experience and tools I have gained so far.  As well as just building a network of creatives that share similar concerns and challenges so that we can continue supporting each other.