Icograda Visualogue Conference
Icograda Education Network Nagoya Symposium
Nagoya Congress Centre - Nagoya, Japan - October 2003

The IEN Nagoya Symposium - University of Brighton

Design schools in general, and graphic design departments in particular are faced with many challenges concerning curriculum development:

At a time when the borders defining the different design specialties have become blurred- this presentation addressed the best way to introduce students to the broad world of design by looking at the following points:

• How does one deal with the pressures being exerted on traditional cultures by the explosion of global communications?
• How does one create a design professional able to deal with changing patterns of social and economic activity?

Schools that participated in the IEN conference in Nagoya discussed these issues by comparing the initial and final components of their curriculum, as illustrated by student work. The schools described the nature of their intended graduate, defined the objectives of the courses in the first year of study, and compared this (critically) against the results of the final year projects.