IMPORTANCE OF DESIGN EDUCATION IN INDUSTRY

IMPORTANCE OF DESIGN EDUCATION IN INDUSTRY
Faculty of Architecture, Turkey.
gulgurer@hotmail.com
The concept of design in terms of engineering and
industrial design means generating a concept and
making it perceivable with the five senses. The
original concept has to be tested against
multidimensional factors it profitable. From this
viewpoint a designer has to take into consideration
the benefit of the potential users while on the other
hand he has to observe the interest of the companies
that will commercially use the developed concept in
their production. Especially the original ideas of
design by the engineering fields have to have
functions tested in terms of benefits; have to take
safety measures, have to be optimized according to
environment, mankind and society and revived many
times.
The designing phenomenon that occur in mental
system and is generated as an idea should have
achieved concrete results in terms of training too,
before becoming a finished product. Therefore
transferring of ideas from the field experience of
professional engineers is aimed to develop the
design process in training.
The terms of their mental origination, design process
is not a phenomenon different from the creative
process. The differing quality may perhaps be seen
on the result that different individuals aim to achieve
depending on their discriminating experience and
trials.
Industrial design is a creative activity whose aim is to
determine the formal qualities of objects produced by
industry. These formal qualities are not only the
external features but principally structural and
functional relationships which convert a system to a
coherent unity from the point of view of user.
Industrial design extends to embrace all the aspects
of human environment which are conditioned by
industrial production and industrial designer occupies
a fairly wide band on the spectrum of human
experience. Design is a very complex and involved
process and it also all aspects of human needs and
activities. Properly done it is a real force for growth.
The arranging of a creative collaboration between
different professional groups has never been easy
and constitutes a classic problem of reconciliation.
Design is perhaps a special case as engineers and
industrial designer have been on divergent
educational and professionals paths.
Design education is a fundamental part of the
educational spectrum. There is a need for design to
be treated as a subject in which every one is involved
at school. When it comes to the education and
training of designers it is necessary to attract the
qualified student into the profession. Good design is
essential to every country’s economic well-being and
it can make a great contribution to the quality of life.
The designer is the most creative intellectual off all
carrying the qualities which would link the demand
and expectations of the interested fields.
As a definition the designer is creator of the
intellectual property from which the designed object,
system or service may be produced. The designer is
therefore; the link between demand and prospect of
its satisfaction. Design is flanked by two other major
functions either or both of which under certain
circumstances may be assumed by the designer.
These are the functions of determining the nature
and extent of the simulative demand, which is usually
called “marketing” and the function of satisfying the
demand which is called “production”.
The education of a designer will be under the risk of
must encompass an understanding of ,and engender
a respect for, other arts, crafts and disciplines upon
which he or she may well be dependent for the
exercise of his or her talent. In the absence of this
breadth, the designer will be under the risk of being
constricted to a narrow professional role and
subsidiary function. This is unfortunately the situation
in many sectors of industry today and it is one of the
major factors affecting our lack of economic success.
If the importance of design is to be fully recognized,
the quality of these who aspire to top positions in
design management, must watch the demands which
they will inevitably be responsible of not only as
specialists but also as generalists.
Except for the aspirant to pure research and others
devoted to the must worthy cause of all the extensions
of basic human knowledge and understanding of our
universe, the student whose work is intended to be in
the exciting world of designing, developing, producing
and marketing to meet people’s needs, should be
taught from the consideration of design. It gives
practical meaning to mechanics, mathematics, to
chemistry and atomic theory. Not only will become
designers but those who have a bent for design will be
prepared for more specialist education, while those
who will constitute the majority of design related
technicians,technologists and engineers of all
kinds,will have been equally well prepared to play their
role in rebuilding Turkey’s wealth creating industry,
Effective teaching process, development of skills,
abilities, knowledge improvement and research
activities in studying,creativity and independent
thinking are hardly possible in modern educational
e s t a b l i s h m e n t .
Serious project work is the ideal way to link schools,
universities and industry.Specialist knowledge,method
as well as social and personal competence are
strengthened. Characteristic subjects can be used to
specifically motivate students for special sectors and
new technologies. This means the project work
ensures that trained scientists and engineers are
being prepared for the future. At the beginning
students receive their first exposure to their chosen
field in the Engineering Design Grafics Course. In this
time is designed to introduce students to fundamental
skills in the area of Visual Comunication and to the
concepts and skills of visualisation, freehand
sketching, 3 D conceptualization, 3D solid modeling
and the engineering design. These skills are
fundamental to modern engineering design and
concurrent engineering. It is important that the
creativity and designing abilities of engineers should
be equally developed along with the field knowledge
during their education for the training of creative
engineers that will be required by the engineering
sectors in the future.
World experience analysis of the university education
shows that teaching the specialists in them creates
favorable conditions for personal and professional
development of the students development of their
capabilities.This is mainly provided by multi-level
schedule of studies, implementation of various
educational programs granting possibilities of creation
of individual educational routes in the system of
continuos professional education. Integration of
educational organizations of different levels provides
optimization of exiting material, technical and human
resources is another undeniable advantage of the
university. All above mentioned in the end, contributes
to increasing quality of social order for education the
s p e c i a l i s t s .
A modern man must learn to see the world in its
integrity. A the future engineer as a driver of
technological progress is obliged in first turn to realize
the necessity of his careful attitude towards the nature,
our planet, the earth’s bowels, atmosphere, rivers,
lakes, seas and oceans. It is necessary to inculcate in
the future technical specialist from the very first steps
of his/her engineering formation the skills of the right
estimation of the impact of his/her technological
solutions on the environmental medium.
Within today’s economic and social context,higher
engineering education must be fit in with new condition.
The current trend in education corresponding to the
economic globalization is related to an international
partnership. Academic exchanges,attraction of
international students are the most common
development strategy components for most of
technical universities in the last decade.
A good design is one in which there is a true and
rational harmony of all aspects ,where the functional
performance required of the object the is met by a
logical and economic structure creating an agreeable
and acceptable form. Again, good design
encompasses good value analysis and should lead to
better utilization of resources with higher productivity
and greater profit and pleasure all round.
Good design is for people and by understanding
people’s needs and ambitions it is often possible to
provide something which they were not aware they
need. Good design therefore can be a really powerful
influence for the common good.
C o n c l u s i o n
‹ndustrial designer’s range of knowledge must wide.
Both physical sciences ahd the ARTs must be
encompassed by his mind .His/her mind .He/she must
be essentially logical and at the same time emotional.
The qualities he/she must combine are on opposite
sides of educational spectrum.
Most products of today with the aim of a high added
value and the complex interworking of many
disciplines and technologies,call for an encyclopaedic
knowledge,training of ART and great experience on
the part of the designer. Espacially the education of
ART and DES‹GN for production should be a principal
focal point of all technical and engineering
courses.This should apply whether the finished
product has a high visual colour and form appeal or
like the remote handling devices for radioactive
material is an almost unseen and essentially functional
article ofcourse if one has an artistic talent for design
one will tend to exercise it in the design of artifacts in
which the artistic content is high and, provided there
are adequate ‘design-related’ craftsmen to interpret
the work in production materials, the need for
technological knowledge is very limited.