hadii

CÇ: This is important. Finishing a task whether it is good
or bad is not always so important to give credit. Sometimes
they start with a bad production. But when you teach
then they start to do good. The important part for us is
if he or she can finish the work or not. This is the most
important thing. You do not expect the most amazing job
but you want a finished work and this is why there is a
separation of junior and senior designer and so on. If you
have a bypass system when they finish but not good, the
senior can handle it so the client do not know about the
bad product because we can finish it for them.
HE: But the important thing is that you are a team member.
It is important to start working with each other. As you
pass time, you establish a working culture and the new
member will also be a part of it. Maybe this is an interesting
point to make. It is creating a common culture by working
together. There might not be a working credentials.
CÇ: This is so important because when you start spending
time with each other and have not slept for two to three
days working on a same project, the working culture is being
established among those people. When the designers
work collectively, there should also be a specific cultural
engagement among these designers and it is important.
But working with designers produce a clan thinking as
each group of a design establishment create their own
culture. This is called clan management. This is also what
we apply on our cooperative.
Cİ: Based on that, you are doers right? You value culture
of practice together as groups. How did you experience
yesterday based on these methods you are using and based
on your background coming from different practices?
What was your experience and impression of yesterdays
sessions?
AF: I want to share my experience. I have a confession. I
was not here yesterday during the half time of the workshop.
I felt that I was a bit away from university education.
I have a lower tolerance in talking about these philosophy
of things and theory. I promptly want to involve in action.
I am an action man based on my business experiences. I
must admit that I have some difficulties to keep my mind to
be here in these new philosophical kinds of discussion. It is
good that everything is recorded because I skipped many
things. I would like to convey myself that I am coming from
a very different discipline however I would like to be a designer.
I think I can be a typical designer and I would like
to design my life. I do not have a well known infrastructure
but I had some expectations to learn what kind of requirements
are valid to be a designer. I have no time attending
to four year curricular education. I have neither time nor
sufficient motivation to get formal lectures of design. But I
wish to be a designer. I have a limitless fair for discovering
what I should do to be a designer but I have a risk to be
lost in this fair. It is an enormous sphere and I do not have
a sufficient path to learn what type of procedures to follow
as guidance.
DG: I will give you the guidance. The music that we heard
while we were waiting for the opening. It was a beautiful
music and I liked it very much and I wished I could also
play such music but I do not have the time to become such
a composer or a musician. All I can do is listen.
AF: You mean that I can listen music but do not try to be a
composer?
DG: If what you say that you do not have the time to learn
how to be a designer, you cannot be a designer.
AF: Then maybe I should change my words. Maybe I have
the time and motivation to be a designer. I would like to
share my experiences of when I made a training program I
also was designing it. I was also experiencing design when
I was designing its posters. Yeah I also like some music
but do not try to be a composer but I would like to be a
designer.
AKİ: I would like to add something to you. I think there is
an important point there. Are we going to open a way for
people like him? How can we create such a way outside of
university? Because, he did not have the chance of studying
design in a university. This is a very good persona I think
that we have to add.
AS: I think that designers are very sensitive in protecting
their rights for them and that only they could educate or
certify. I think your case is very important for us in lifelong
learning because there are many other people who has
some interest in learning about design. You want and sense
to have a certain expertise but you cannot because you
have to spend four years as student. I think that lifelong
learning should tell you that you can do it by giving you a
well adjusted program. Gradually you build up your portfolio
of competences and maybe a portfolio of credentials
so that you can also say it to others that you also have all
these expertise.
HE: Ayhan you are saying that you will spend a necessary
time to be a designer no matter what it takes. But not in a
school environment like this?
AF: No I cannot start to a university education.
HE: I understand. So the problem might be coming from the
formal design education for the late starters.
HN: I only have a small comment. We should differentiate
university education in general from learning skills in
performing a profession. University education picks up a
youngster and allows that person to spend four years teaching
them not only profession so the university education
elevates people no matter what profession. Coming back to
your question I think it is so obvious. I agree with Andreas
on you should find a way to enrich your design part which
the society should be providing you with that. This is what
we were talking about.
You are absolutely right in looking ways to learn certain skills
that would make you a designer. I do not say that I am a sociologist.
I do not have constrictions on what you cannot be but
design profession is very specific. You have to learn specific
techniques. You need to follow certain rules. Than this is what
it is. I just wanted to separate out university education from a
certain profession.
DG: When we are talking about life long learning for designers,
we are not opening at least to my mind saying the
whole population of planet earth through this process can
participate to become a designer. That is not what I thought
we were talking about. I thought we were talking about that in
the classical sense of professional designers, it is not enough
for them only to have a formal education. They have to go
beyond the formal education and keep on learning. A structure
to further enhance the capacity of a professional designer
after his formal education requires the sophisticated system.
The same machine is not appropriate in permitting anyone to
become a designer at any time and any pace. Another system
maybe could work. But it is not the same system because the
lifetime learning assume that the designers are off at a certain
point as a foundation that came to continue whereas, what
you are suggesting that anybody can become a designer
but participating in this program is that they will be having
an opportunity to learn the basics of the system. When we
are talking about the professionals, going on to a system of
lifelong learning, they have the basics. When a designer have
a formal education, he does not have to go back into basic
composition. Lifelong learning does not teach basic composition.
It is the additional things. That is why I think we were
talking about different things.
Cİ: David I think it is a possible direction. I agree that it is
different than lifelong learning for professional or studying
designers, but for amateur designers. I remember from the
talk of yesterday, you gave the example of Brody. You said if I
am not wrong, he did not study design. Ok it is a very exceptional
thing but how would you compare it?
DG: Of the six and a half billion of year on planet earth,
there are two examples like that I know of. There are exceptional
people and there is no doubt. But to make a system, to
assume that anybody can do that I think create expectations
that cannot be met. But it is a different system. I am sure. I
think what we are talking about here is lifelong learning for
designers that are already designers but not an opportunity
for anyone who is not a designer which is another issue.
There may be classes and formats. It cannot be a one thing
for everybody or it is nothing.
AS: I think it is a little bit abstract discussion. I think there is
one person and he describes his personal experience and interest
to learn more. I think it is a beautiful and an appropriate
case for our discussions on the idea of lifelong learning. But
how and whom could we address and in what way? Limiting
or not limiting, considering if it is a designer tag or not, that is
for me not relevant. I would like to listen this person with these
interests.
He needs some source and some place where he can
satisfy his interests. Obviously university does not offer
because they force him to study a four year diploma
program so we need to find something else. It is a very
valid and good example of what we were discussing
here. Even if it is for designers as you consider, for me
lifelong learning does not start at the university. It also
starts at an early childhood learning about composition,
design thinking and so on. We can be much more
pragmatic in our discussion here in order to achieve
some sort of outcome of this workshop.
HN: I would like to talk about the conceptual confusion.
When our friend said I would like to be a designer I
guess he did not mean to be a professional designer.
He just told us that he would like to look at his own life
from a design perspective. That is quite fine. It is like I
would like to review my life from a lawyers perspective.
That does not make me a lawyer, or an architect. I
constantly draw things and tried to look at things from
a design perspective because design perspective eases
up thinking for me. It is something that I developed. I
would never call myself a designer for that. So that is
just a little remark. And maybe in that respect, lifelong
learning could offer designers lifelong learning and lay
person a design perspective at a separate perspective.
I have no objection to that. In that way we can raise the
awareness of design.
AI: I think it is nice to discuss it like this because yesterday
each section was different from each other. After
yesterday me and Yeşim went to same direction and
talked about what is the aim and goal of the workshop.
Could you re-describe the aim of this workshop? I think
at this stage we can focus on reaching the aim. Now we
opened a discussion only but we do not have a goal. It
is nice to talk what we understand about lifelong learning.
What does it mean? Because we are working with
communities and third parties to create products as designers.
I also know some craftsman who develop themselves
alone. I have for instance some friends who only
went to high school but did not go to a design education
in a university. They develop themselves by attending
and contributing in workshops and events. Those things
they took benefit from it and started to think differently.
We also have a tutor here in Bilgi University. He went
and started working with an apprentice. He did not
have a designer background but we wanted to give him
critics. But we told him we are not designers and we did
not expect a designer but a person between apprentice
and master. Some of them are better than our students.
We are collaborating with them and they are very
ambitious with motivation. When we started the first
section with David it was very exciting for me because
I had a chance to witness other contributors ideas. We
can create a lifelong learning path to make people
understand themselves and to understand what are the
systems, manuals and templates that is necessary to
establish. We can create a roadmap that benefits from
newly invented technologies and other professions.