“Developing
a symbiotic process” in Product Design
Engineering |
Debbie also invited
Arts and Education students to
attend in order to enhance
cross-school co-operation and
had attendees from Fashion
Design Styling and Promotion, Fine Art, Applied Arts, Interior
Architecture and Design.
Aishanie Marwah, a final year
Interior Architecture student,
said: “The lectures have been
extremely educational in terms
of materials, hearing the
designers’ thought processes
and their experiences in the
design industry”.
Debbie said: “The commonality
of all the lecturers was
positivity, a fresh approach,
lateral thinking and a self-belief
that students found very
instructive. Many of them are
graduates from the famous MA
in Design Products at the Royal
College of Art”.
The lecture series was set up to
support a second year module
looking at Product Design in
Context which Debbie said she
has remodelled to principally
examine and question design
today and what the
contemporary design scene
means for students once they
graduate.
Paul Cocksedge, whose work
encompasses installations,
product design and a lot of
lighting, was particularly
popular with many students.
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Second year PDE student Mike
Bowyer said: “Paul’s
presentation was relevant to our work and it made us think more
about what we plan to do for our third
year projects, and where our main
interests in design actually are”.
Debbie said: “My intention is to involve a
large number of rising stars with our
department to raise the University’s
profile and develop a symbiotic process.
I am in discussions with several of the
designers about working with us on a
number of exciting design projects
starting in the next |
academic year
September 2010-11, one of which is
likely to involve Interior Architecture
students. I believe we should be working
cross-school as much as possible”.
Debbie has recorded a number of the
lectures so that they can be used as a
resource for all students and as
teaching aids. She is aiming to build up
a library of DVDs and make them
available to the Library Resources
team.
The initiative is set to run again in the
next academic year. |
Debbie Jedwab, Senior Associate Designer in Product Design Engineering, has been working to develop a number of initiatives in
the PDE department.
Debbie has an extensive
network of contacts, having
worked with a number of high
profile companies and
designers over the years. “I saw
our students were largely
unaware of experimental
design and how liberating it
can be in terms of creative
design thinking,” she said, “so
I decided to invite in some
guest lecturers to inspire them
and get them thinking and
questioning their own design
process”.
The guest lecturers – Max
Lamb, Paul Cocksedge,
Freddie Yauner, Julia
Lohmann, Philip Blum (of
Black and Blum) and Shin
Azumi – are offered limited
access to University workshops
in exchange for their time and
expertise.
The series ran from mid
February until the end of
March as a series of six
lectures. Speakers were chosen
to cater to both BA and BSc
Product Design students, some
lecturers being at the extreme
end of experimental design and
others more design engineering
orientated.
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