Nicole Roberts MFA Thesis Visual Component Artwork - Savannah ...

introduction
The dichotomy Meggs describes is evident within many of today’s new graduates.
Their shortcomings are the result of an intrinsic design school struggle between
the development of experimental creativity and critical thinking versus the need to
concurrently prepare students for practical clientele and real-world workplace limitations.
Defining a universal solution is complex, as graphic design education is laden with
variables unlike any other major of study. Discrepancies in pedagogical practice are
accepted, with no professional certification to validate its graduates, or to definitively
validate the outcome of the school’s curriculum itself. Unlike graphic design’s neighboring
disciplines of interior design and architecture, laymen proficient in certain software are
able to easily self-impose the title – graphic designer. Paul Rand often made reference to the
misalignments from pedagogy to practice, “Design is one of the most perplexing pursuits in
which to excel, yet as a profession it is relatively easy to enter. It requires no accreditation,
no authorization from official institutions. There is no set body of knowledge that must be
mastered by the practitioners. [Regardless] the designer must contend with encyclopedic
amounts of information, not limited to any particular idea or form.” 4
The inconsistencies are apparent from the community trade schools to the liberal art
colleges, from the independent art schools to the university departments of design. Graphic
design education has continued to be diversely interpreted into multiple configurations
throughout the country. National academic accreditation is not demanded, and many
schools align their curricular updates with differing regional standards. In order to bridge
these gaps – three initiatives must commence. First, graphic design educators and collegiate
administration must mandate consistent student portfolio reviews. Second, industry
professionals must unite to prescribe a national certification program that ensures those
who claim to have gained a professional graphic design education truly meet industry
expectations. And third, if objectives of collegiate design programs are to comprehensively
prepare students for success in the professional workplace, there must be a consistent
criterion established of what it means to truly meet industry expectations. Without
this paradigm, graphic design education as a whole is left with an opaque definition
of professional expectations for the twenty-first century workplace – a definition the
subsequent study seeks to clarify.
4 Paul Rand, Design, Form, and Chaos
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1993), 15.
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