Topic: “Like’s/Dislikes”/Intuition-driven Design in a Cross-cultural Environment

During their lecture and workshop, Marina Yee, Dirk Van Gogh and Bram Jespers, all professors at KASK, School of Arts Ghent, expand upon the work they conduct with their own students. Taking their methodologies to an entirely new environment, they research the possibilities of intuition-driven design in a cross-cultural environment.

The main thought behind their point of view is twofold.
Firstly they feel that design education should be applied not just as a methodology to teach product design, but also as a way to spark the students’ personal awareness when it comes to society and the problems it presents. This is primarily done by daring them to familiarise themselves with and trust their intuition.
Secondly they investigate whether and how designers, once that intuition and the skill to actively apply it are acquired, could become true visionaries of the future society.

In the new model Yee, Van Gogh and Jespers are developing, design is not merely seen as a way of producing products to be consumed. It is perceived as a never-ending process of thinking and acting enabling the designer to grow constantly towards a new personal awareness and new methods of problem solving. The model no longer focuses on the product as the only goal and outcome of the design process – though it is still an intricate part of it - but more on the effect the design process itself generates within the designer. To them, the product can be seen as the most natural response to the right process.

As Yee, Van Gogh and Jespers are all committed professors of design, they also look into ways of developing new educational methodologies matching that paradigm. For to them, the true challenge of future design education is to attain two goals at the same time: both bringing about a change in attitude of the student and teaching how this attitude can result into the creation of truly timeless and desirable products.