Abstract

There is a rising imperative for design education programs to better prepare graduates for the challenges of the future job market. Future work contexts forecast rising complexity which requires designers to upskill in cross-disciplinary collaboration as well as adapt to the demands of data-driven and agile design. The challenge and constraints of revising curricula, let alone introducing significant change, cannot be underestimated. This paper presents the AIGA Designer 2025 as a framework tool to assess the effectiveness of a non-traditional design education program. A comparative analysis of learning outcomes was undertaken with three case studies within an Australian university design school. Here, the importance of cross-disciplinary collaborations and complex problem solving in real-life contexts is highlighted. These results provide a best practice exemplar education model that future design educators can build upon and apply to their own curricula.

Keywords

design education, future designer, learning outcomes, curriculum mapping

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Oct 9th, 9:00 AM

Adapting future designer curricula: A comparative analysis of design future skills in learning outcomes

There is a rising imperative for design education programs to better prepare graduates for the challenges of the future job market. Future work contexts forecast rising complexity which requires designers to upskill in cross-disciplinary collaboration as well as adapt to the demands of data-driven and agile design. The challenge and constraints of revising curricula, let alone introducing significant change, cannot be underestimated. This paper presents the AIGA Designer 2025 as a framework tool to assess the effectiveness of a non-traditional design education program. A comparative analysis of learning outcomes was undertaken with three case studies within an Australian university design school. Here, the importance of cross-disciplinary collaborations and complex problem solving in real-life contexts is highlighted. These results provide a best practice exemplar education model that future design educators can build upon and apply to their own curricula.

 

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