Design Inundation

One of the key challenges that I have when talking or engaging my younger charges in the areas of design are their lack of exposure to what design is all about. It seems quite a challenge at times to make them 'see' deeper into what design is all about, 'listen' to what design has to offer from my exchanges with them, and to get them really into the groove of things and see to it that when they go away after the lessons, they will be 'enlightened' about how design is affecting or will affect them. But hey, I am relishing every moment of it...bearing in mind that sometimes it will take somewhat of a drastic measure at times to really make sure that some things just stays with them for a little while longer. Taking a leaf off how children learn their multiplication table, perhaps some form of a 'drilling' routine of sorts will actually be good for these charges of mine, but not of the rote learning that perhaps all of us, in our much younger days, are exposed to when we are required to learn our mathematical tables, but perhaps of a similar nature.

I was merely thinking that perhaps the design equivalent of such an endeavour will be good. Something that perhaps I would like to 'nickname' a Design Inundation of all things design, this could be a single session, or a series of sessions, in which my young charges are constantly being 'bombarded' by designerly stuffs, about how things are designed, about what design is all about, and more importantly about how design does affect them in more ways than they can think of. More importantly, such an exposure should be made to engage and 'touch' them on a visceral level, the level of which I think it will be more successful for any knowledge nugget to be retained inside their grey matter. And I think it should go beyond just the theoretical practices and coverage of what design is about, but also includes the multi-disciplinary and multi-faceted nature of design, about how design can be the unifying factor of what the other subject disciplines have to offer, and about how design can make and break a culture (think iPod), an economy (think what Chocolate and watches have done for the Swiss) or even a civilisation (think of what paper has done to the Chinese)...and I think you know what I am trying to arrive at!