This space is a call for a discussion surrounding the challenges, intricacies and best practices for teaching sustainability to communication designers. Peter Fine and Eric Benson will host the discussion through a series of connected questions that will lead to a depository of best practices.

Introduction:

If we assume that design should be central to any higher education then we must also assume that central to that is sustainability. Sustainability demands that we consider our history and understand its application to the present in light of the future. If we are to shape the future of design and the connected images and artifacts with which we are surrounded we must first truly understand why we over-consume.

Question 1:

Does our over-consumption run counter to any effort to understand sustainability as it applies to design? If so, what are the best tools, methods and resources to discuss this with our students?

Question 2:

If a dramatic shift in how we teach design were to occur, where or how would it take place? Are incremental steps working? Do we need an entirely new model or space within which to work?

Question 3:

Perhaps specialization needs to be eliminated entirely in design programs? Should design be taught to all university students as integral to all types of learning and as a bridge between the ideal and pragmatic, the hard and the soft of science, pure intellectual curiosity and highly directed learning? Would this pedagogy encourage more holistic and possibly sustainable solutions?

Next steps:

Introduce the topic of “Teaching Sustainable Design in the University Classroom” as the topic for the Design Studies online Journal. In this caveat:

Communication Design educators are, in many ways, too slowly recognizing the importance of rethinking the methods the profession uses to design and manufacture their print communications specifically to minimize the negative impacts on the planet. Despite, the crawling pace of change, this shift toward a more responsibly considered undergraduate curriculum is occurring. This pedagogical transformation makes the question of teaching to “the green imperative” (Papanek, 1995) no longer a source of debate, however the question of how to teach sustainability for socially, economically and environmentally responsible design is the more pressing inquiry.