Research Must Change Too

Young designers have really good intentions but what are the economics behind them going into work in the public sector and the social sector?

I wanted to share with you today two observations I’ve had, one on a more theoretical side from my PhD research and one on a more practical side, from getting to know a lot of designers and design students out there.

From the more research, or theoretical side, one of my observations has been that as design practices have been changing – and I know a lot of designers now who are really pushing the boundaries of design practice – I think research, the way we go about investigating design and our approaches to looking at design should also change.

The second observation that I’ve made has come from interacting with young designers and mostly young design students.

Young designers have really good intentions but what are the economics behind them going into work in the public sector and the social sector?

The economics of it has been really challenging, such as where do they get their funding from? What is their return on investment? And actually how to you measure that return on investment? Young design students, who are graduating have found it really difficult to carve out a space.

Lauren holds a Bachelor of Design Honors degree (Visual Communication) from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and a Master of Business (Organisational strategy and Marketing) from the University of Sydney, Australia. She has worked as a designer in graphic and communication design, landscape architecture and in management consulting. In 2007 she began a full-time PhD to investigate design methodology in the Design Council’s Dott 07 (Designs of the Time) initiative. The PhD is co-sponsored by Northumbria University (Newcastle upon Tyne) and the Design Council (London). It explores and understands design methodology through the different roles of the designer. It used the Dott 07 initiative as a case study to identify these roles demonstrating the designer as: Co-creator, Researcher, Provocateur, Entrepreneur, Capability builder, Facilitator and Strategist. The final thesis is due June 2010.