Category: Marginalia

“Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects that must be saved from a burning building.”

Freire, P. (2014). Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition, p.46, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Aphorisms

During this workshop we were given a list of aphorisms on education. Some powerful quotes here about the nature, purpose and potential of educational institutions to enact societal change.

I particularly responded to number 6: ‘The purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows’, which I later found out was by Sydney J. Harris, the American journalist, drama critic, teacher, and lecturer. This is a beautiful and poetic metaphor for how education can turn the viewpoint of students outwards, to the world, rather than inwards, to themselves and the institution.

Letterform Archive

The Letterform Archive is a collection of over 100,000 items related to lettering, typography, calligraphy, and graphic design, spanning thousands of years of history. Based in San Francisco, with a selection of artefacts accessible online. This is an exciting learning tool for object-based learning, relating to typography.

#object-based learning #archives

Ulm School

The Ulm School of Design (Hochschule für Gestaltung, HfG), founded in 1953 by Inge Scholl, Otl Aicher and Max Bill, made design history until its untimely closure in 1968. The institution’s achievements continue to be of prime importance for the education and work of designers as well as for research until this day.

Foundation Course exercise, Student: Hans von Klier, Instructor: Helene Nonné-Schmidt 1955
Courtesy HfG-Archiv/Ulmer Museum via It’s Nice That

ECAL

Swiss design school, based in Lausanne, founded in 1821. With a focus on Industry collaborations, workshops and high-levels of production, the school has a great track record of producing graduates who are ready to enter the contemporary design industry and prepared for future developments. Quotes below are from an article on AIGA’s Eye on Design.

ECAL Graphic Design, image courtesy of adrienrovero.com

“The lecturers fuse tradition with the present context, which encourages work grounded in both craft and technology.” (Janna Lipsky, Vitra Design Museum)

There is an “emphasis on high production values” according to Jonas Berthod, who graduated with a Bachelor’s in graphic design in 2012.

“Once you’ve been set a brief there are one-to-one tutorials every week, which I think is a key reason ECAL students do so well. After the first two sessions where you might discuss an overarching concept, you have to show printed drafts of what you’re working on – abstract thoughts aren’t as welcome as concrete developments, teaching is visual and you learn by doing.” (Jonas Berthod)

“The briefs by the graphic design program varied from the applied to the conceptual, but were always defined by an output of graphic design objects; books, posters, typefaces, identities, or videos, for example. Projects that would be hard to define within a specific category—like those you might see in an art school in the UK—were a rarity. So in that sense ECAL is very much an heir of the Swiss style.”