Design school: Design education in the age of digital capital

Design, we are often reminded, has a direct social purpose that is capable of reaching all sectors of public life. National design organisations across the world proclaim that design acts reflect a nation's social and cultural values; design shapes the everyday products people use, the buildings we live, work and play in, and the clothes we wear. Furthermore, design communicates those values to others. It is therefore an extremely powerful tool that can communicate and express a nation's values to others and has a significant role in the social, cultural and economic wellbeing of its people (Newman and Swann, 1996). Moreover, it has been suggested that design is the best tool that we have available to us to make sense of the contemporary, complex modern world (Sudjic, 2009). But how should a design school in the age of digital capital best prepare future designers for this complex world? How can the design school maximize the potential opportunities suggested by this future, uncertain world? Can the design school truly help address some of the emergent and huge global issues we will surely face? By looking at the contemporary situation this paper explores how the structure of design education has been transformed by a number of internal, external, and contextual factors. The paper will expand upon the operative scope, flexibility, and vulnerability of teaching design, its history/theory, and representation in the years and decades ahead in the design school.