Episode 2: Design Education

In this episode, you'll have the opportunity to eavesdrop on a candid conversation between Becky and Gareth as they delve into the world of design education. They begin by defining what design education means and provide insights into its current landscape. The discussion takes a deep dive into their roles as design educators and how educators can influence the future of design. Their conversation covers degree programming, shaping critical skills, and even their differing perspectives on teaching ethics within the design realm. Throughout the conversation, they emphasize the significance of effective communication for designers, underscore the role of industry relationships, and issue a compelling call for radical design.

Professor Becky Earley

When I sat down to write this introduction it seemed like a daunting task, how could I condense her career and ongoing projects into just a couple of hundred words! No doubt there will be bits I’ve missed, and Becky will need to fill in the gaps within her conversation with Gareth.

Becky is UAL Chair of Circular Design Futures and the Founder and Leader of multiple research centres at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London. She’s a researcher and award-winning team leader, with her research encompassing making materials, prototyping, exhibition curating, and writing.

The threads throughout Becky’s research, workshops, communication, and textiles work are those of sustainability and activism. Her work has been drawn together through not only the co-founding of World Circular Textiles Day, launch in 2020, but also through her book Design Materials and Making for Social Change, published recently in June 2023.

beckyearley.com

Professor Gareth Williams

I want to start my introduction to Professor Gareth Williams by telling you about the first time I met Gareth over 20 years ago. In his role as Curator of 20th Century and Contemporary Furniture at the V&A, Gareth welcomed all the first-year students on my degree course into the V&A where we were given white gloves and an exhibition chair to measure and record before we went back to the studio to create drawings and a scale model. What an enormous privilege and I suspect a particularly rare opportunity it was. What a pleasure it was to meet Gareth.

More importantly, whilst at the V&A Gareth drove the profile of contemporary design by curating or contributing to more than 15 successful design exhibitions and permanent gallery displays. Gareth followed that role with 5 years as Senior Tutor on the RCA’s world renowned MA Design Products course before moving to Middlesex University, first as Professor and Head of Design, and since 2022 as Deputy Dean for Quality, Enhancement and Development for the faculty of Arts and Creative Industry.

Gareth’s focus is now on design not in individual disciplines but rather on how design and the creative industries are taught.

mdx.ac.uk

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