How else might we learn to do design? Alternative visions for future development of skills for the profession

In the UK some eighteen-year olds are avoiding the high costs of University and entering employment directly. Presumably some of these might be interested in developing skills as designers. How might Higher Education provide the development of professional skills for these people? Disruptive innovation, coined by Christensen [1] forms a first influence. He asked why companies that concentrated on developing products that met their customers’ needs were not successful. This was because their current customers were not the future customers. Christensen and others such as Utterback [2] investigated other industries before investigating education [3]. Threshold concepts and liminality of Ray Land [4, 5] form a second influence. In the process towards 'becoming', understanding moves to being. Epistemology becomes ontology. A third influence is books such as How to Design Cars like a Pro [6]. Implicit in the title are the assumptions that the reader wishes to be a car designer and that they intend to imitate professionalism. Deschooling and silent design are other influential topics. Several possibilities that might develop designers outside the mainstream of design education as practised in Higher Education are suggested. Solutions are briefly posed. Part-time and virtual courses have the disadvantage of costing the same as conventional degrees. Separating the provision of qualifications from the process of developing skills is recommended. Solutions for developing design skills are divided into the pedagogical and andragogical, with the latter providing greater value for money. [1] Christensen, C., The innovator's dilemma: when new technologies cause great firms to fail 1997, Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School. [2] Utterback, J.M., Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation. 1996, Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press. [3] Christensen, C. and H.J. Eyring, The Innovative University. 2011, San Francisco: Jossey Bass. [4] Land, R., J. Meyer, and J. Smith, Threshold Concepts within the Disciplines. 2007, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. [5] Tovey, M., J. Owen, and R. Land. Induction into the community of practice of automotive design. in Crossing Design Boundaries. 2005. Napier University, Edinburgh: Taylor and Francis. [6] Lewin, T. and R. Boroff, How to design cars like a pro. 2010, Minneapolis: Motor Books