Nic Hughes!

I know Matt already knows Nic well (he taught him on the MACTP), but I just read his spiel on the Goldsmiths website. It's a section for graduates to talk about their experiences. I have bolded a couple of bits because I thought they were important:

Nic Hughes, graduate 2006
“I’m a graphic designer with 11 years of experience - designing for clubs, music, magazines, fashion, art, corporate and retail. I have always maintained a level of ambivalence towards my chosen career. No matter how interesting your client is, inevitably you’re in the game of shifting units. Basically, certain expressions of design cannot be explored within a commercial context. No client is going to fund an all-out attack on themselves, their product, or their culture!
Last year I packed it all in to pursue a full-time MA - the time split between this and childcare. The MA at Goldsmiths explores the relationships between theory and practice and how one informs the other. Yet more importantly it is about design’s ability to generate questions and stimulate critical debate. For me, the programme offers a space to explore through design many of the areas that commercially lie off-limits.”

OK, so maybe we know this already... We teach there for God's sake... But I really like the straightforwardness of his comment in the first paragraph.

That's why Design Research should be funded: because the Mass-Consumable Product Design Establishment does not want to ask any questions or have anyone ask questions of them because then they might sell less. Because Design is about "shifting units" and not about making anything better (not sure if that's the right word) for anyone.

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