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CONCLUSION Chapter 4: STUDENT WORK FROM THE MFA AT SVA NYC
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Chapter 3: THE NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORKS PROJECT Chapter 2: THE MFA PRODUCTS OF DESIGN DEPARTMENT
of the SVA NYC Products of Design Masters Curriculum
Chapter 1: WHAT IS DESIGN FOR SOCIAL IMPACT
A Critique
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INTRODUCTION As a student of design, I am taught to design with the world in mind: design has consequences. There are so many connections and threads to a design and what it affects. Although my focus as a student is to learn and try to, as best I can, take into account all of these threads, it would be inattentive of me to ignore the curriculums that are used to teach future designers. In this essay, I will critique the forward designing but still flawed MFA Products of Design Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City (SVA NYC) curriculum based on experience as a student and my research for designing for social issues.
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Chapter 4: STUDENT WORK FROM THE MFA AT SVA NYC
“Design for social impact is the practice of interrogating systems— institutional, economic, social, political, interpersonal—to define opportunities for change that give voice to those who has been disenfranchised or marginalized by design.”
Chapter 3: THE NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORKS PROJECT Chapter 2: THE MFA PRODUCTS OF DESIGN DEPARTMENT
First, what is design for social impact? According to Jennifer Rittner (a teacher in the MFA in Products of Design program)
Chapter 1: WHAT IS DESIGN FOR SOCIAL IMPACT
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WHAT IS DESIGN FOR SOCIAL IMPACT
Chapter 1: WHAT IS DESIGN FOR SOCIAL IMPACT
Social impact design is very important and takes a lot of time. The success of the design is not measured by the completion of the design but by observation, feedback, and long-term impact. Already this makes design for social justice much more difficult since it could be years before you see if the design was effective or not.
But for change to happen, we have to try. So how can one go about teaching design for social impact?
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Chapter 4: STUDENT WORK FROM THE MFA AT SVA NYC
The MFA Products of Design Department is “a two-year, immersive program that prepares exceptional practitioners for leadership in the shifting terrain of design.” To try and optimize time, attention, and resources, the curriculum focuses on shorter and more intensive courses.
Chapter 3: THE NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORKS PROJECT Chapter 2: THE MFA PRODUCTS OF DESIGN DEPARTMENT
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THE MFA PRODUCTS OF DESIGN DEPARTMENT
Chapter 2: THE MFA PRODUCTS OF DESIGN DEPARTMENT
I began to look through the various courses and their descriptions. Based on the descriptions, the courses sounded very promising in teaching social impact design. For example, Jennifer Rittner teaches a course called Design for Social Value which “proposes a new model—one in which companies, governments, and nonprofits all need to create new kinds of value to thrive in a changing economy” and has students working directly with organizations to develop services and products to create this new value. This sounds like a fantastic course that challenges design in the commercial world and starts giving students real-world experience in designing with social values and consequences in mind. However, when I look at the curriculum I see that just in the first year for the fall semester, students have nine courses. The last time I had anything close to nine courses that I had to take at once was in high school, and I suffered for it. In high school, I was just surviving and repeating information without as much knowledge retention as I wish I had had. In college, I started learning because I chose courses that interested me and because, with fewer classes, I could focus on each course in more detail, improving the quality of my work. Seeing the high quantity of courses required for students each semester I wondered how this would affect student work and growth. Since all the courses described seem of high caliber and quality I moved to look at student work to get an idea of what the students were getting from the courses.
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This community-based design project aimed to get members to think critically together and engage in robotic technologybased solutions for the community. The findings of the project showed that “participation, as we have commonly thought of it, is “not enough”: we must consider how we can extend the participatory design project to new political forms and objectives.”
Chapter 4: STUDENT WORK FROM THE MFA AT SVA NYC
To try and better gauge the success or theoretical success of the student projects, I used The Neighborhood Networks Project as a guide.
Chapter 3: THE NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORKS PROJECT Chapter 2: THE MFA PRODUCTS OF DESIGN DEPARTMENT
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THE NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORKS PROJECT
Chapter 3: THE NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORKS PROJECT
It could be argued that, if the Neighborhood Networks Project had been extended and included phases that had community members work to solve problems in the larger community, the conclusion might have been different. However, it just goes to show the intricacy and planning needed to create a successful long-term system that will positively impact social change. This gives me a good idea of what to look for and what kind of social design projects work or might work in the real world.
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With The Neighborhood Networks Project in mind, I was excited to see what the MFA SVA NYC students had created through or inspired by their courses. One of the first projects shown is an assortment of projects focusing on women's studies and designing for girls and women. Many of the projects focused on helping women and organizing workshops to help empower women in male-dominated fields. This is very encouraging since many of these projects are not only looking at social issues but are also using systems (some similar to the Neighborhood Networks Project) to work towards more lasting results. However, looking at more projects, I start to see a trend.
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CONCLUSION Chapter 4: STUDENT WORK FROM THE MFA AT SVA NYC
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STUDENT WORK FROM THE MFA AT SVA NYC
Chapter 4: STUDENT WORK FROM THE MFA SVA NYC
Although many of the projects focus on a social issue, the solutions are only to create a product to try to solve the solution as opposed to implementing a longer-lasting system that goes with the product. To be clear, these are student projects and I did not expect to see a fully implemented system. However, theoretical systems of change were not usually mentioned or included with the product. This brings me to the disappointing conclusion that, as high a quality the courses are in the program, the sheer number of the courses is hurting student learning: although the courses cover a wide range of topics, it is not as easy for students to explore a topic more fully and so their solutions even theoretical solutions only cover a small time frame as oppose to solutions with longer lifespans. This is not to say all projects failed to thoroughly encompass their chosen topic but enough did to allow me to come to this conclusion.
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CONCLUSION To create a successful system to implement change, a lot of user research and context are needed. As much as I wish the process was faster I understand the need to be thorough and evaluate the consequences of the design system before revealing it to the world. And this too needs to be taken into account when teaching design for social issues.
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Social impact design is still being explored. When a designer takes on social impact design, there is no one easy solution. Being an experimental and vastly complicated topic, I applaud the SVA NYC MFA Products of Design Department for taking on the challenge especially because designing for social impact is so important for designers to learn. However, the choice to cram a large multitude of courses and topics into every semester is hurting the design of social impact education since it does not allow for a more thorough exploration of already complicated topics leading to surface-level solutions.
S DESIGN FOR C IMPACT A L
Written and Designed By Amanda Williams Sources “Neighborhood Networks: critical engagement/creative expression/ participatory design,” C.DiSalvo, et al. “What is Design for Social Impact“, Jennifer Rittner (part of the Series, “What is Design, Now?”)