Dangerous

Ideas on Design
Education
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A Manifesto by James Victore

I learned to design the same way

I learned to swear: I had to pick
it up in the street. I failed out of a
university and was asked to leave
a design school. But as destiny
would have it, Ive spent the last
20 years teaching in the classroom, running my own workshops
and lecturing around the world,
and Ive developed my own ideas
about how to teach design,
encourage creativity and even
inspire creative courage.

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Im no expert on design educations merits or

faults; this treatise is more of an If I were king of
the forest scenario. I have no scathing account
of how design schools got it all wrong; there are
islands of creativity out there, hothouses of experimentation, but education on the whole has
become an industry (20 years of schooling and
they put you on the day shift, as Bob Dylan said),
and design education is no different. My own purpose in teaching design has always been to help
shepherd strong, opinionated creative individuals
capable of handling this tool. My job is to make it
hard for my students, to set a high bar. I ask them
to seek answers inside of themselves, then make
the huge leap of faith to believe in those answers.
In doing so, they learn not only that they will not
die, but also to trust their intuition, their gut, in
order to make new, unique, exciting work. My
ideas are not for everyone, and I dont care.
As a teacher, Im a dreamer and an idealist.
People follow dreamers and idealists. Our work
demands these qualities from us because good
work inspires us. When we see freedom in someones work, it frees us up; when we see intelligence
in someones work, it makes us smarter; and
when we see vulnerability in the work we feel
closer, more human.
Many of my peers see this as dangerousI am
the fox in Pinocchio, leading the good little boys
and girls off to a life in the circus. But however
will they find a JOB? ! they ask. When pushed to
invite danger into their work, my students find
something much better than a jobthey learn to
create their own place in this world. I want them
to learn to embrace danger. Danger requires bravery. It requires us to risk everything, to do our best
work, embrace failure and leave it all on the track.
Herein are a few dangerous ideas about design
education.

Weird is good.
Students are attracted to design in the first place
because they see the world in a different way,
slightly askew. They are weird. Most of them have
heard this many times during their livesand it
was not intended as a compliment. But Weird is
good; its an anomaly and its unique. I teach on
the simple premise that the things that made you
weird as a kid make you great as an adultbut

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only if you pay attention to them. If you look at

any successful person or celebrity, they are
probably being paid to play out the goofiness
or athleticism or nerdiness or curiosity they
already possessed as a child. Unfortunately for
most people, somewhere along the road their
weirdness was taught out of them or, worse,
shamed out of them. Crushed by the need to
fit in, they left their quirks and special powers
behind. But it is our flaws that make us interesting. We need to not only hang on to them, but
hone them. I dont try to make my students Designers. I want to make them free-er. Its my
job to teach them to look inside, to covet their
weirdness, to help them direct it and take the
rough edges offor even add a few new ones.
Its my job to help students understand and cultivate their individuality and innate weirdness
and turn them into a powerful tool. Weird is
good, but only if we put it in your work.
Design is not math. This is what makes the work
hard. There are no right answers and very few
wrong answers. Ive always thought of design
more as an innate skill set that we are born
witha small ember waiting to be coaxed into a
larger flame. What I see as problematic is when
we teach design as if it is something outside of
us. As if the students are in an assembly line
holding empty shoe boxes, waiting for them to
be filled with rules and theories and Photoshop.
These tools are important, but they will only get
you so far. I dont believe design can be taught,
but rather that it can be reminded. We need
to remind students to use what they already
have inside themselves: their history, their loves,
their fears. We have to teach students how to use
their brains, to make their senses of association
and imagery sharp and flexible and urge them
to seek their own way and express their individuality. We have to push them to think for themselves, form an opinionand know that their
opinions matter. Essentially, we have to teach
them to be themselves and put it in their work.
In my classroom, the first crit question is
always, What do YOU think? A students
explanation of her work may start, When I
was a kid, my dad took me to the beach, where
we collected stones. Brilliant! This is relatable. When you do a good job of telling me your

story, your fears, your loves, I see my story,

my fears, my loves. Your particular story has
meaning to a wider audience. So I spur my
students to look inside for answers, not to
constantly look outside and drown in a sea of
reference materials or look for regurgitated,
ready-made answers. They never have to make
up a story. They have the story and need only
look inside. This frees them from being in the
people-pleasing businesslooking over their

(look it up) design competitions. They learn

that their job is not to try to appeal to everyone
(a patently impossible task) but to tell THEIR
story and find THEIR audience. Ultimately,
theyll make work that makes them happy, and
theyll get paid for it. The more we love what we
do, the better off the field will be.

Weird is good;
its an anomaly and its
unique. I teach on the
simple premise that
the things that made
you weird as a kid
make you Humans
great
as
an
Come Before Design.
adultbut only if you
pay attention to them.

shoulders for a popular answer. Thus, they

avoid the worlds worst questionWhat do
THEY want?and they understand that the
far better question is, What do I have to say?
Through this process they learn what others
respond to in their work. This trains them to
learn who their audience is. They learn that
their audience is not me, nor the other students
nor other designers, and certainly not onanist

After I was asked to leave design school I began

interning for one of my professors, a prolific
book jacket designer named Paul Bacon. Paul
was a master letterer and could draw and paint
like a genius. But what he taught me about was
wine and auto racing and well-told jokes, and he
inspired in me a love of jazz. With these passions
and a few of my own, I realized that I had everything I needed to be a successful designer.
Most of my college students jumped straight out
of high school into a design degree. Personally,
I think this is crazy because (apologies ): You
dont know shit. As a teacher, I am searching for
interesting, qualified people. In order to teach
you to be a designer, I have to first ensure that

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My best students have

always been the ones
who failed some other
course of study or life
choice because they
carry with them the
fire of that experience.

youre a compassionate, curious, intelligent being.

I need to figure out if you have something to say, if
you are talented, strong, smart and can handle the
responsibility of access to the public. My best students have always been the ones who failed some
other course of study or life choice because they
carry with them the fire of that experience. Their
peripheral vision is stronger; they can pull from
their outside sources, interests and experiences
beyond graphic design. I believe in taking a wider
view. I think we should encourage everything else,
and then design.
Fuck specialization in branding or advertising.
Most branding is cookie-cutter boring, made
by specialists. The obsessive concern with the
intricacies of any tiny branch of design proves
a myopic point of view. You know a lot about a
little. I understand the importance of learning
the complex rules of typography, but its like
hygieneknow about it, but dont obsess over it.
Specializing is something a student should learn
or be drawn to on their own. What makes a good
designer is how they think. My students interests in cartography or magic tricks or motorcycle
repair makes them better, more interesting and
stronger. The best designers are interesting people first. Smart, funny and curious. Learn everything. Then forget it. THEN design.

Creativity Can Be Killed

Design is a commercial field, a business.

Creativity and business do not always make the
best fit. Creativity seeks the Newnew tools,
new ways of doing and seeing things. But new is
not always welcome. In fact, new is generally
accepted only after its been accepted. In any
form, whether its fashion, music, culture, even
productnew is seen as a threat to the status
quo. Design is no different.
Business is the opposite of creativity. Business
wants tried-and-true. Business wants safety.
Business would like to be creative, but only after
the value of that creativity has been proven.
Business likes to be in second place because first
place is dangerous.
As educators we want to do our students a service, understanding that theyll accrue debt and
need to make a living. In order to make their
parents happy and shield our young charges
from financial failure, we teach to-the-business.
We teach cowardice. In order to get a job,
students are taught that goal No. 1 is Please the
Client. Newly weighed down by the practicalities of making other people happy in order to
get paid, students lose sight of themselves and
the reason they started out on this path. We all

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know that acceptable is not good and will never

be great. Hell, anyone can hold down a job. As
Joseph Campbell put it, I think the person who
takes a job in order to livethat is to say, for the
moneyhas turned himself into a slave. I want
students who have a vision and keep their eyes
fixed on that goal to avoid getting waylaid along
their path.

Here is a short list of a few added bonus ideas

I like to impart on my students to help them on
their path:

The problems start down the road. On my YouTube channel Burning Questions, we often find
ourselves answering queries from mid-career
designers who have lost their way, unsatisfied by
the doldrums of creating color-corrected, acceptable work. They were conditioned to leave the
creative part of the business out, and replace
it with the merely cleverwell-behaved little
ideas that match the carpet and are so bland that
they can pass through a focus groups anus unscathed. Boring work that succeeds for the mere
fact that it offends the fewest number of people.

Ask the questions. Why are we doing this?

What are we contributing to the world?

Have boundaries. Be able to say NO

and to never learn the taste of shit.

Ask for Moremore time, creativity and

always more money.

Learn about money management.

Know that not all clients deserve

your attention. Designers are not
one-size-fits-all.

My first and main concern is to foster confident,
creative individuals that the world cannot ignore.

Its my job to urge their spark into a flameto
make their worlds larger, not smaller. Larger
means to see the potential of human-to-human
communication, the power of images and words,
the strength in their opinion and personal historiesthe freedom from making shit up. Smaller
means catering to the whims of a client or constantly seeking the approval of others, guessing
what other people want.

Enjoy your work and the process.

If you dont enjoy it, how can you expect
anyone else to?

It is not the teachers

role to preen students
for cubicles and
fluorescent lighting,
but to prepare them
for the longer road,
to prepare them for
careers 10 and 15
years down the road.

Of course I want my students to be extremely

well-paid for their work, but what my students do
with their flame, the commercial application, is
their own damn business. Whether their highest
esteem is to pay rent or to shoot for greatness is
up to them. It is not the teachers role to preen
students for cubicles and fluorescent lighting,
but to prepare them for the longer road, to prepare them for careers 10 and 15 years down the
road. In a field populated more and more by
MBAs with color swatches, I push my students
for creativity. I want to fill them up with a myriad
of creative possibilitiesnot only the obvious and
logical and marketable answers. As educators,
we need to push for experimentation, risk and
failure, not supply a safety net and easy access
to a 401K.

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Your Work Is a Gift

The highest ideal I can try to get my students to
understand is that their work is a Gift. This is a
truly dangerous idea. When your work is a Gift, it
changes how you think about it. It changes why
you work, what you make and even who you work
for. When your work is a Gift, your goal is no longer to satisfy a boss or clientor even to gain a
paycheck. You now work to make yourself happy,
and in turn speak directly to your audience because you give them something of value: a piece
of yourself. Designers should understand that this
is how they will be paid best: to be themselves.
What motivates and excites the world is to witness
one person, engaged, energized and empowered.
This is the path to creativity. This is the way to
great work. And ultimately, this is what makes
us attractive to clients.
What I propose is a difficult and dangerous
path, but then again, my ideas are not for
everyone. Just the sexy people.

James Victore is a graphic artist, author and activist.

Described as part Darth Vader, part Yoda, Victore is
known for his timely wisdom and impassioned views
about design and its place in the world. He reaches
thousands with his weekly Burning Questions video
series, delivers life-changing talks around the world,
and leads avant-garde workshops to help creative types
of all spheres live and work successfully. At the helm of
his independently run design studio, Victore continually
strives to make work that is sexy, strong and memorable;
work that tows the line between the sacred and the
profane. He taught at the School of Visual Arts in New
York City for over 20 years.