What students of design must know

Updated on: Monday, June 21, 2010

A good communication designer is one who connects things already designed and makes sense of them” says Ed D'Souza, a practising designer, photographer and a multi-faceted artist who has worked extensively across all areas of visual communication, visual art, cultural study and social science.

Mr. Ed D'Souza heads the department of Graphic Arts at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, and has been instrumental in developing a postgraduate programme in Graphic Arts and Communication Design.

The Winchester School of Art, founded more than 140 years ago, apart from being one of the longest established art schools in the U.K., remains one of the most popular places to study art and design.

Over the last 17 years via field work in India, Mr. Ed D'Souza has been documenting economic, political and social change, and questioning the mythologising of Indian identity by considering wider ideas of the interchange and tensions between identity, location and context.

Important role

Talking about his love for collecting old Indian film posters he says, “They represent an important cultural artefact that carries a visual imagery of changing history. They open art to academics, but sadly with time, the history is getting lost.”

He says India has always interested him as a student and the present India with its ongoing conflicts between tradition and modernity, a rising middle class consumerism and an extensive economic growth makes for an even more engaging creative pursuit.

Talking about the importance of psychoanalysis and psychology while training students of design, he points out, “Ten per cent of the U.K. is involved in the creative industry, making it a multi-billion-pound export industry. What is required now is the presence of a researcher in every designer who uses technology to enhance living and make a qualitative difference to the way society thinks.”

Mr. Ed D'Souza's work spans across the areas of creative consultancy, advertising, publishing, corporate identity and editorial design.

Talking about the need to create a wider perspective to design that is impressive and creates an emotional impact, he says, “Communication design is not simply designing artefacts that carry images. It's about understanding the society on a broader level to analyse every innovation so as to produce persuasive and effective work that stays with the people.”

Sensitivity

The rapid developments in information and media technology have revamped visual communication design, raising significant challenges and opportunities for those prepared to play a creative role. As a plethora of career opportunities lies open for this breed of analytical brains that represent the veneer between information and design, all that makes the difference is the dormant yet impacting sensitivity in every creation.

As Mr. D'Souza puts it, “Every designer needs to be a ‘citizen designer' whose work should reflect an understanding of society, its habits, the environment and the ways in which technology can affect lives.”

What students of design must know

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