Abstract
As design educators, we feel it’s imperative to prepare students for the wicked problems of the 21st century. Design Futures, the briefing papers released by AIGA in 2018, anticipates a complex future where design solutions must be increasingly open-ended to accommodate many layers of uncertainty. In an effort to model such unpredictable constraints, we developed the Mash Maker project, a design charrette that explores the collision of time and form through a system of carefully devised prompts. The conditions encouraged first-year design students to utilize improvisation methods, iteration, and collaboration while underscoring the value of process over outcome. Music provided a logical framework for exploring this relationship, precisely, hip-hop, which uses time-based characteristics for structuring sound (Caswell). In many ways, a beat mimics "the grid," a principle of design. Students designed songs in real-time using specific visual and typographic prompts. By designing and listening in tandem, students connected the auditory to the visual in a pro-process experience that often led to uncertain territory.
Keywords
improvisation, constraints, unpredictability, process, participatory
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs_lxd2021.14.266
Citation
Slone, R.,and McMahon, B.(2021) Mash maker: Improvisation for student studios, in Bohemia, E., Nielsen, L.M., Pan, L., Börekçi, N.A.G.Z., Zhang, Y. (eds.), Learn X Design 2021: Engaging with challenges in design education, 24-26 September, Shandong University of Art & Design, Jinan, China. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs_lxd2021.14.266
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Case Study
Included in
Mash maker: Improvisation for student studios
As design educators, we feel it’s imperative to prepare students for the wicked problems of the 21st century. Design Futures, the briefing papers released by AIGA in 2018, anticipates a complex future where design solutions must be increasingly open-ended to accommodate many layers of uncertainty. In an effort to model such unpredictable constraints, we developed the Mash Maker project, a design charrette that explores the collision of time and form through a system of carefully devised prompts. The conditions encouraged first-year design students to utilize improvisation methods, iteration, and collaboration while underscoring the value of process over outcome. Music provided a logical framework for exploring this relationship, precisely, hip-hop, which uses time-based characteristics for structuring sound (Caswell). In many ways, a beat mimics "the grid," a principle of design. Students designed songs in real-time using specific visual and typographic prompts. By designing and listening in tandem, students connected the auditory to the visual in a pro-process experience that often led to uncertain territory.