DRS2012 Bangkok Proceedings Vol 4 - Design Research Society

Anna Valtonen
market-orientation and competition among higher education institutions (Newman et.al
2004, 1 and Scott, 1997, 46)
For the individual designers a set of new and current skills is a strong foothold to the
market. When the CAD-tools first became used in design agencies in the early 90s, many
young designers got hired because they knew how to utilize the new technology, unlike
their older peers (Valtonen, 2005). This approach can be seen in todays design students,
as well. Many of the students, particularly the ones that are close to graduation, think of
their skill set as a way to be covetable for the market and a way to get themselves a job.
As this was a class based on improving skills, I can easily say that it has made me a better
designer […], Personally, I was only interested in skills based courses for the PtF week.
(3/2)
“The understanding of the next generation of smart materials would be an invaluable
asset to have as a designer. The potential of harnessing these materials properties could
revolutionize consumer products, creating a new paradigm in terms of usability. These
smart materials are still relatively new regarding market penetration, as conventional
plastics and raw materials still dominate today’s consumer products –it is a perfect
chance to jump onboard and capitalize on these new materials” (6/5)
This is particularly interesting in the case of Umeå Institute of Design as it has been
defined as one of the top design educations in the world 1 and virtually all students get
employed immediately after their graduation, most having the option of several
headhunters. So employability shouldn’t be their biggest concern.
Competitive skills aren’t easy to define
Many have tried to define what the new design skills are that are needed in todays
society. In the UK a series of recommendations were set out in the Design Industry Skills
Development Plan, developed into the Creative Blueprint, which was presented to
government in 2008.
Although the Blueprint is very extensive in describing why new skills are needed as well
as in painting the picture of what will happen if designers do not renew their skills, there is
a lot less emphasis put on what these new skills actually would be. This is the challenge
of most national policies, the moment they try to include as many professionals areas as
possible, the actual recommendations tend to become fairly general or vague.
Many other countries have also set out to form a national innovation policy, discussing
what skills are needed for designers in todays’ society. These often face the same
challenges as the Blueprint or the Cox review, wanting to improve society on a grander
scale but then struggling with showing how this would be done. Jonathan Woodham
(2010) even questions whether formulating the national design policies (in the US) isn’t
really just recycling the “Emperors New Clothes”.
Despite their shortcomings in defining what skills would be needed, the policies and
innovation papers are very unanimous in the fact that new skills are needed. The
1 Umeå Institute of Design has for example been on Business Week’s top 30 design educations every time the
list has been made (Wong 2009), it was listed as one of the worlds top 18 design educations by psd+tuts (2010)
and was recently mentioned on Core77 (Bachett 2011) as one of 8 global design educations that other design
educations should be inspired by.
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