From School to Studio: Exploring Product Design Education with Jim Dale

In this episode of Talking D&T, I sat down with Jim Dale, Head of Product Design at Nottingham Trent University, to explore the evolving landscape of design education. Jim shared fascinating insights into how university courses are adapting to prepare students for the diverse world of modern product design.

We delved into the transition students face when moving from school to university, discussing how Jim's department helps broaden their understanding of design beyond physical objects to include digital products, systems, and services. Jim emphasised the importance of creating an environment where students feel comfortable exploring ideas and even failing, which contrasts with the often high-pressure atmosphere in schools.

Our conversation took an unexpected turn as we explored the potential role of language skills, particularly poetry, in enhancing students' ability to use AI tools in design. This led to a broader discussion on the importance of communication skills for designers, including the ability to articulate ideas verbally and visually.

Jim also shared his thoughts on how design and technology education in schools could be improved, suggesting a greater focus on rewarding exploration and risk-taking, alongside maintaining core skills like drawing and making.

Throughout our chat, it became clear that design education is a complex and rapidly evolving field. Jim's perspectives offered valuable food for thought on how we can better prepare students for the multifaceted world of design, from school through to university and beyond.

(Text generated by AI, edited by Alison Hardy)

Transcript

Alison Hardy: 0:06

you're listening to the talking D and T podcast. I'm dr alison hardy, a writer, researcher and advocate of design and technology education. In each episode I share views, news, in the shaping dnt series that I'm doing, looking at what's happening in design and technology in england, what could be done and what needs to be done. So this morning that's when I'm recording this uh is with jim dale, a colleague at nottingham trent university, and he's come on to talk about things that happen at the university around product design and the work they're doing with schools. We'll start to think a bit more widely about some of that relationship with schools and how universities and schools come out together. Anyway, I'm kind of giving it all away and so, jim, I'm going to hand over to you to say who you are, where you are and what you do.

Jim Dale: 1:01

Hi, alison, thanks for having me. I'm Jim Dale, as you say. I am the head of product design, the product design department at Nottingham Trent University, where I've worked now for 23 years I think nearly 23 years and in that time I've kind of gone from being a lecturer right through to running the department, and it's a department which runs a range of courses that cover all aspects of product design, furniture, have the more sort of science and technology side of things in our bsc course and onto postgraduate as well. So lots of experience running design courses and obviously working with applicants and students from a design and technology background.

Alison Hardy: 1:47

Yeah, so I used to work in the same building as you, so I've kind of seen how it's developed. I know that was when? Was it 2017? I think we finally moved out.

Jim Dale: 1:56

Yeah.

Alison Hardy: 1:57

Gave up our space and left all our kit.

Jim Dale: 2:00

Yes, I think. I think our furniture students are actually in one of your old rooms, alison.

Alison Hardy: 2:05

Not that I begrudge any of that Of course not. No, it's been good to continue to work together and, as we were saying before, I hit record myself, sarah and Jamie, who I work with in education. We kind of regularly get contacts from some of your students when they're doing their dissertations and they want to know a little bit more about what's happening in school. So there is still that link and obviously we're working with Max, who's in your department, and we've now got this design education roundtable going.

Jim Dale: 2:32

Yes, which is a great idea.

Alison Hardy: 2:33

Yeah, it's really good. It's been really exciting to hear what's happening across the university and how we can think about what's happening in schools and how we can support schools. So I suppose the first question is you you, most of your students, I presume are sort of 18, fresh out of school when they come to you. What are they like on the whole? Let's make some sweeping generalizations about them sweeping generalizations.

Jim Dale: 2:56

Well, they, they joined enthusiastically. Um, I think it's that's one of the most exciting things actually about taking students from school or college into higher education is just that kind of enthusiasm and that kind of excitement about making that next step into sort of specialising into something they want to do in the future. So they're always kind of wide eyed and open to ideas and that is a great joy. It's always the start of term, is always the best part of the year when they come in and want to get started and find out what this thing called design is all about.

Alison Hardy: 3:32

Yeah, I suppose you know they come to you with their ideas about design and then you teach them about a developmental, maybe more specialised way of thinking about it, or different.

Jim Dale: 3:43

Design and what product design is now is such a broad spectrum. I mean, when I did a you know my course, um 30 odd years ago I mean product design or industrial designers we kind of knew it more as then was very clearly kind of stuff, it was physical things. But now product design covers such a wide range of everything from physical products through to digital products, through through to systems and services and it's all kind of part and parcel. So we don't really call, we don't really talk about it as an industry that we're feeding. It's kind of a range of industries, it's really a discipline.

Jim Dale: 4:18

So I think we have to kind of expose students to the range of what designers now do in industry product designers, kind of expose students to the range of what designers now do in industry product designers. And that is really quite eye-opening. Because I think that in some ways design and technology in schools is still fairly focused on the production and design and manufacture of physical things and I suppose the majority of what we do is is still that. But it is a much wider world. So as much as they are specializing, we are opening their eyes to a much wider, hopefully, range of futures that they can go into and where design is really important, because you know people will use product designers in broadcasting, they'll use them in banking and financial services, they'll use them, obviously, in manufacturing and design studios and so on. So the opportunities are massive and in some ways it's a matter of taking those students and saying, actually there's a much wider world here which you might not have even considered, um, and where design interventions can happen. Now is all over the place that's interesting.

Alison Hardy: 5:16

That's interesting word. I kind of wanted to unpick a little bit that word product yes, um and then, you know, I've sort of talked about that, that new term about design interventions, you know. So products, we kind of tend to think three-dimensional yeah, as you say I think in schools that tends to be the the direction.

Jim Dale: 5:35

But you're, they're coming to you and you're kind of saying actually product is not just a thing that you handle yeah, the core of it is looking to what the problem actually is and kind of understanding where you as a designer can actually make changes or interventions which will improve the lives of the users or the obviously the clients that we're working for. So sometimes it is a designer's job to ask those awkward questions and sort of say, well, actually, maybe your problem isn't here, it is over here. Um, and so that kind of idea of challenge and and trying to chase down where the problem actually lies and and explore it is what makes design really interesting from a designer's point of view. I mean open-minded clients, hopefully, will come to you with this kind of notion of actually we think it might be this, but part of your job may well be to sort of find where we do go in the future and how we can open up new markets to you with this kind of notion of actually we think it might be this, but part of your job may well be to sort of find where we do go in the future and how we can open up new markets or new approaches, and that might not mean anymore that that's changing a few things in the manufacturing process. That might be that actually we're going to bring in some whole new service aspect to what we do, and product product designers are part and parcel of that process.

Jim Dale: 6:47

Now, um, and you know, a lot of the work that happens in industry is multi-disciplinary. It is a range of people working together, whether that's engineers and designers and tool makers, or you know people in the marketing team who all sit next to each other in an office and will explore ideas together. So that collaborative element is really important as well.

Alison Hardy: 7:10

So that sounds like that when the students come on the course, they're actually. You seem to have to spend some time, maybe, unpicking what their thoughts are about design sure getting them to see it differently. Does some of them find that quite uncomfortable? I presume?

Jim Dale: 7:24

Yeah, I'm sure they do. I mean, some students will clearly come with a sort of predefined idea of what they want to do. You know, I love furniture design. I want to become a designer, a maker. I see myself maybe as a craftsperson who's going to produce this stuff, and that's absolutely fine. And you know, some people will go through the course with a very clear idea of what we want to do.

Jim Dale: 7:43

But some people come on the course just wanting really just to see where it takes them and explore the opportunities that are available, and there's no right or wrong answer to that. We'll cater to everybody, um, and we're very much about developing the designer, uh, the individual, and and and allowing them to explore and develop their practice through the course. So as they move through a course like ours, which is generally speaking four years long because we offer a placement year, is that idea that they will start to personalize their education. So I think in those early stages we want them to experience what designers can do and what design can be, um, and kind of find their way through it, and that's that's really key to enabling students to find themselves and makes, you know, the relevance of that degree really important for us. I think if if they didn't come out with some much clearer ideas about where they want to go in the future, then we wouldn't be doing our job properly so what sort of things do they go on to?

Jim Dale: 8:43

they go all over the place. I mean it's absolutely. I bump into people who I taught 10 years ago or 20 years ago now and they've set up businesses. They are working for broadcasters. They're working all over the place.

Jim Dale: 8:58

You know, and I think every story is really interesting, you know, whether it's somebody who's now running a design technology department, right through to people who are entrepreneurs and who are running their own businesses and making a fortune. You know, it's really lovely to see them all and kind of to hear what design did along the way. So even if you are, if you're working in ux design, user experience design, which is obviously a big sort of draw these days, um, service design and so on, and it's all very digital, or whether you're working in the computer game industry, or whether you're working for a film production house or whatever, you know how design and how a product design education has sort of got them. There is a really interesting story, um, but all of them sort of say that those what we learned. So some of those experiences were really formative in terms of them taking those choices so that's, that's what they kind of go out you know, go out to do.

Alison Hardy: 9:56

I mean, it did make me smile there, as if like well, the teachers. And then there's those that are doing the businesses, earning lots of money.

Jim Dale: 10:01

That made me, that made me smile a bit um, hopefully there's some teachers making a lot of money as well, but you know um, but what about sort of pre, do you know?

Alison Hardy: 10:14

I mean, before they come to you, I know I know you do quite a lot of work with schools yeah, I'm sort of curious about thinking about what you're doing and what you think you as a not you as an individual, but the university or, you know, higher education can be doing to support schools and maybe sort of challenging some of the things that are going on in school. So what, first of all, what are some of the things that you're doing?

Jim Dale: 10:37

yeah, yeah. So when I became head of the department, which is probably about five or six years ago now, I kind of felt that we needed to be going out more and speaking to the people, the sort of stakeholders although I hate that term, but kind of both. We fed, but also were you know, we we were taking from so effectively. We set up an industrial liaison committee to speak to the discipline, to speak to industry, to allow them to come and see what we were doing, but also to so they had a mouthpiece in in what we did in the future and and so we were remaining relevant. But I also felt it was really important that we would. We're doing that with schools and colleges as well.

Jim Dale: 11:15

So similarly, we've kind of got this schools and college sort of liaison side of what we do, where we actively go out and support schools, support teachers, run projects with schools, run teaching sessions and really try and get out as broadly as we can into education to support them.

Jim Dale: 11:35

And I think that is as fundamental and as crucial as speaking to the industry that we then go on and feed afterwards. And I think sometimes higher education has kind of been quite insular in terms of it just concentrates on what it's doing itself, and I felt we really needed to just get out there more and ultimately, maybe provide ourselves as kind of almost like a conduit for schools and colleges to speak to industry as well and um, and so we're all supporting each other because, fundamentally, schools need support, um, industry wants great graduates and great, you know um workforces, and the best way of doing that is working together. So, yeah, we, we actively will go out into schools, run little projects, run little teaching sessions and just speak to speak to the students you know and, um, hopefully, inspire a few along the way yeah, yeah, and I know, so what.

Alison Hardy: 12:30

So I'm so I'm sort of hesitating there, because I know you've got some colleagues that go out and do some teaching, yeah, in schools. What's? What's the sort of things that they're doing and why? Why did you feel that that was the area that needs to work, work with?

Jim Dale: 12:41

well, I think a lot of that came through conversations with the schools themselves in terms of how can you help us or how we can help you, and I think we went out with the idea of maybe running small projects and little competitions, so going in and sort of briefing the students, running a short project and then maybe coming back once or twice to see how things are progressing and provide feedback. And you know, know, personally I've been doing that for a long time with local schools in particular, um, but we were hearing more and more that actually could you help provide us with some teaching content around. Things like drawing in particular was one of the things. We we kind of do a fair bit of um and provide kind of almost master classes, um, in certain areas, which will, I suppose, show the students the relevance of what we're already teaching, but in a kind of, maybe in a more kind of professional context, but also bring some of the style of what we do in higher education into a school environment. So yeah, so more and more we've been kind of asked to do kind of those kind of sort of um workshops which may be skills driven um, yeah as well.

Jim Dale: 13:52

So we're kind of open-minded to that. I mean, there's obviously limitations in terms of what we can provide and the number of projects we can run a year, the number of sessions, because obviously we've got to teach our own students, but but we've been really good, we're working really hard to try and do as much as we can. I mean, and I think you know it's still for us kind of early days and kind of doing this as well in terms of this kind of new approach and, and you know, I think where we may be going in the future is maybe a bit more kind of formalized in terms of maybe providing online stuff and um and mixing that with sort of on-site um activities as well. But we've got to kind of explore, explore where we go next so.

Alison Hardy: 14:32

So that's kind of knowledge. You're sort of sharing your knowledge and your expertise yeah when you go out into schools, what are you learning? That?

Jim Dale: 14:41

hasn't been done.

Jim Dale: 14:42

That's the other side of it you think about it as knowledge exchange yeah, well, I mean, I suppose for the, the staff, it's really enlightening in terms of the facilities and the approaches and the challenges that schools actually have in terms of teaching, design and technology, whether that's resources, whether that's you know, the amount of interest, um and support they get.

Jim Dale: 15:04

And obviously you know we know full well the challenges which teaching, design, technology in schools are going through at the moment, which are many and diverse, and I think people like me who've had kids go through schools and experience that I've always taken a close eye, but I think for maybe some of the younger staff ability to kind of really understand those challenges and and think a lot more about, okay, how do we help and support now, but how do we maybe, when we take in students from school now, how we maybe think about where we need to support and develop them, where I think maybe in the past we've taken that for granted in terms of what we were expecting, um and um, and so that's that's useful in opening everyone's eyes and I'm obviously sharing that around the team as well um, I mean clearly we, particularly with us, we're really lucky because we've continued to interview applicants from sort of a level um which is getting rarer and rarer.

Jim Dale: 16:02

So we like to sort of develop these relationships with students and coming in an open day and then coming for an interview, which are really just conversations and opportunities to look at, look at their work, and they're very positive and kind of supportive activities, but not, you know, interview is such sort of a strong word for what is something which is really basically a conversation.

Jim Dale: 16:22

But we want to make sure that we're kind of growing with the students and I think when I left school, you know there was an expectation in terms of what my experience would have been like, and back then you had to do an art foundation before you'd even get onto a degree course in product design, which is a great thing. But we have to sort of I think now it's probably about 80% of our students come directly from A level, so it's a very different kind of experience and very different kind of skill set and awareness set than maybe we would have had in the past, and we have to adapt with the times as well. So so, yeah, we have to know what's going on yeah, because it makes a difference.

Alison Hardy: 16:59

Otherwise, I mean on a very pragmatic level, if you, if you're not adapting and aware of the nature of the cohort of students you've got coming in. You've got an issue about retention, haven't you?

Jim Dale: 17:10

oh, totally yeah, and I think I think what's what's really positive is, I mean, our our continuation rate is over 90% in our department and and I think because we part of that is about the sort of culture we develop and it's very much about making students feel comfortable with being creative in that kind of environment and sharing ideas and being critical to each other and feeling comfortable within that that they can challenge and they can make mistakes and look like a bit of a fool and it doesn't matter, and actually it's part of the process and by developing a kind of strong community where you know the students and the staff are supporting each other.

Jim Dale: 17:56

It's quite a different kind of relationship to, I suppose, a school driven kind of approach, which is very much. You know, the pressure on the test and things like that is is is high and I think we want our students, particularly in the first few years of the course, not to worry about that, really to just kind of explore and and do that in an atmosphere which they can fail and try again and prototype and and see how things go, without that kind of constant fear of failure. Um, so, which is a different environment yeah, yeah and it's.

Alison Hardy: 18:30

I mean, this is what you hear a lot from design and technology teachers about. One of the purposes and the values of design and technology is that young people can be creative and fail and it doesn't matter um.

Alison Hardy: 18:42

It doesn't matter if their design doesn't work, but it's sometimes the assessment criteria and sometimes inexperienced teachers that struggle with allowing that openness around it. So I suppose, if I then set you the challenge and I didn't pre-warn you of this, so I'm going to put you on the spot If you thought, if you thought if you could influence what was happening in design and technology in, let's say, that 16 to 18 range okay, it's like the non-compulsory section in terms of the curriculum, what, what would be a couple of things that you would say, right, if we could change this. This, I think, would make a couple of things that you would say, right, if we could change this. This, I think, would make a big difference.

Jim Dale: 19:27

Yeah, I think I would encourage the powers that be to kind of get behind the idea of letting students explore and fail and reward that attempt. You know, that glorious failure that I think needs to be kind of expressed within the process, that actually it's not so much the outcome which is important but it's the understanding of the process and it's the understanding of where something's gone wrong and why so it's that kind of reflection on this didn't work out this time but actually that is really rewarded section rather than just a quality thing at the end, and that you know, taking risk is something that we we kind of applaud and you know, the exploration and the, the depth of the study and the breadth of the study should be thing, something which really should be kind of high on the priorities of what we're doing. I mean, equally, we want to make sure that students really are getting an opportunity to to draw and some of those old core skills which I think is so important. I think so often kind of things like drawing and presentation skills are seen as, um, communication skills and just purely skills. When drawing in itself is a kind of analytical activity, it is about looking at something and and understanding it, um and and so there is a real value to some of those skills in drawing and making which are fundamental. Regardless of the kind of design you're going to go into, whether it's graphics or fashion design or product design, some of that core stuff is absolutely still core. So it's about developing skills but, at the same time, developing a mindset which is which is exploratory and that is rewarded.

Jim Dale: 21:26

And I think, finally, I think we probably need to be a lot more broad-minded in terms of what design actually brings to the economy and what it brings to society, and we need to look beyond it, not just being a thing, particularly if it's an object, a bookcase, whatever you might be designing it.

Jim Dale: 21:49

It could be a system, it could be a digital outcome, it could be an app, it could be a, a piece of service, design, experience, design. I think the real challenge for design and technology at the moment is just the speed of change in industry. You know, I think it's it's still kind of got one foot in a very sort of traditional approach, and that's quite right because, as I say, drawing and making, I think, are fundamental in terms of how people think and how designers think, but ultimately as well what they're going to what you can go on and do with a design qualification and where design is needed in the economy and the business world is absolutely everywhere, then the opportunities and the approaches probably need to be a bit wider. I don't know if that answers your question, allison. No, it's a bit scary actually.

Alison Hardy: 22:36

Yeah it's a bit scary, but it's quite interesting how you're going from what you're talking about from this, um, you know, using hands, yeah you know to draw to talking about something that is um you know, a system or an app yeah which is is quite abstract in a way so you're going from something that's quite contract concrete, and I think that is one of the challenges in design and technology is around that, there is the concrete yeah of the idea and representing it.

Alison Hardy: 23:11

Um, and I used to love what you know, when we were we were all in maudsley, you know sort of setting up spaces where the students could kind of role play a space.

Alison Hardy: 23:21

You know I mean to try and understand absolutely what the issues were that you need to do that physicality it's not just the drawing of it or the model of it or the CAD drawing, and that use of CAD kind of gives that separation. And I think one of the things around we haven't used the phrase design thinking and I kind of don't want to, because I think that kind of keeps it in the head, whereas actually what you're talking about in design involves the whole body oh absolutely. Whether that's sight, um, you know it involves all the senses that makes it concrete.

Jim Dale: 23:57

So I think all of these things you're talking about are the the concrete nature of it, rather than the abstract of design thinking yeah, I think more recently what's been a real eye opener is obviously the development of artificial intelligence and that as a design tool and what that can do to support design activity as a kind of creative kind of um accelerant in a way. Um, and actually the skills needed to kind of use ai well are around language, and it's kind of my conclusion to this is probably we need to start teaching poetry more actively in school. You know, we almost go back to a sort of more classical education to drive technologies which are potentially text input or visual input or a combination of the two, but actually about the structure of language you use, it actually becomes incredibly important. So, yeah, I mean, do we start doing a bit of poetry on the course? For us it's been a question we've sort of actively played with.

Alison Hardy: 25:00

Wow, that is really, really interesting because I mean, I'm using AI quite a lot, I'm using claude um, you know and and what you realize, and we had this conversation with joanne taylor of quite a few episodes back talking about ai and dnt right and it's a tool that's what it is absolutely and we can only make the fullest use of it if we know what we're putting into it absolutely how to handle it.

Alison Hardy: 25:28

So I can only use a tenon saw properly and really well if I know how to handle it and it's sharp, and I know that it's sharp and I can recognize it and I'm using it on the right material. So I have to have that knowledge in my head, in my body, before I get to that point of using the tenon saw really well. But I have to practice using it's. Back to that drawing, isn't it?

Alison Hardy: 25:49

you can only draw really well if you practice. You can only use ai really well if you practice. But you have to have knowledge, and I don't necessarily mean factual knowledge and I think, um, you know, and I was talking to joanne and saying, yeah, it's a great tool, but if the children don't have the language to put into the AI, the outputs are still not going to be great.

Jim Dale: 26:11

Yeah, I mean, there's still very lazy AI and there's really deeply thought out.

Alison Hardy: 26:16

So I've been kind of. I've recorded a couple of videos recently with some teachers about how they're developing oracy skills in design and technology, um, and just recently had a conversation with somebody from the organization voice 21 and they're all about oracy, um.

Jim Dale: 26:35

And yeah, so introducing poetry is about language skills and about their vocabulary and their ability to put together a sentence um yeah, and I think you know, I think we've always known that there's a sort of performative aspect of being a designer.

Jim Dale: 26:52

You are coming with ideas and pitching them and selling ideas, and so that idea of you being able to present not just visually but orally you know we've had in the past actors, helpers and supporters with that kind of thing, because I think you know that can be very daunting to a student. I mean, I was incredibly shy teenager, so the idea that I would then be a few years down the line pitching ideas to clients and trying to sell an idea terrified me, me. So you know the support that you would need in terms of just building up your confidence, but equally then, just how you stand in the room and present and perform and sell an idea is important as well. So there is a much broader skill set as a designer than just design, technology and just expertise, materials and and you know processes. It's, it's again, it makes design really interesting yeah, yeah.

Alison Hardy: 27:50

And then you've got me off thinking about. Actually, poetry is full of metaphors yeah and actually metaphors help things become concrete, um, and so actually, yeah, if they've got that language from poetry or literature that helps them use metaphors to describe well, it's like this yeah. It smells like that, it sounds like that, it would move like this, then that helps with the performance of articulating their ideas to other people, but also to themselves.

Jim Dale: 28:21

Sure.

Alison Hardy: 28:22

So, yeah, well, that took us off in a direction I didn't expect us to go that. That's design yeah it is, isn't it? It really is. I mean, I really wanted to unpick with you about how you get them thinking about design and, uh, design interventions. That was like really at the start of the conversation, but that's another conversation.

Alison Hardy: 28:42

That'd be great to come back to um about some of the ways of developing that design literacy, that um skills and strategies have been able to understand space and what you should start, and I love that early comment that you made about what a client might come with this. But a designer sees that actually the problem's here or the solution's there, so yeah, but, I think that's another conversation.

Alison Hardy: 29:05

So yeah, but you took me off on a whole whole world and got me thinking there about poetry and now I'm going to start thinking about what poems would you use. Anyway, there you go, and the books I like um have that strong visualization, you know they help you get that picture.

Jim Dale: 29:27

Yeah, I mean, my dream is that we get to start teaching haiku and you know really tightly structured Japanese poetry, something I'm into.

Alison Hardy: 29:36

Wow, okay, right again, that's another conversation. Yeah, we'll probably not go there, maybe that's something we talk about at the Design Education Roundtable, maybe how we're developing, developing their skills yeah, I'm thinking about that right. Thanks ever so much, jim.

Jim Dale: 29:50

Thanks for your time my pleasure, it's been a really great conversation. I've loved it sorry, it's been so rambling no, no, it hasn't at all, but that's.

Alison Hardy: 29:57

That's what this is about. It's, it's design is complex yeah it's not. We can't put it in a box of design, thinking it, it's complex and what you're teaching students and enabling and empowering them to do is life-changing, and that's building that on what's happening in school. So that's really exciting.

Jim Dale: 30:17

Yeah, it's life and people.

Alison Hardy: 30:19

All over, but thanks for your time again today.

Jim Dale: 30:23

Thank you.

Alison Hardy: 30:50

I'm Dr Alison Hardy and you've been listening to the Talking D&T podcast. But thanks for your timeT community. If you want to respond to something I've talked about or have an idea for a future episode, then either leave me a voice memo via Speakpipe or drop me an email. You can find details about me, the podcast and how to connect with me on my website, dralisonhardycom. Also, if you want to support the podcast financially, you can become a patron patron. Links to speakpipe patron and my website are in the show notes. Thanks for listening.