Editorial

A recurring feature of Studies in Design Education and Craft is the lively, informed and articulate controversy that not only characterises design education but regularly revitalises it. The articles published in this issue are all concerned with one of the central issues in the controversy - the conflict between emphases on creativity and emphases on craft skills. In particular this issue may be seen in the provocative yet highly important contributions by Ashton, Grady and Pugh. Pugh, in a hard-hitting review of the Art College and Polytechnic scene directs himself to the great divide in art education. ";There are fundamental, underlying contradictions at work in art education. On the one hand we have the Art Department which is rigid in traditions such as the perpetuation of old ";skills";, techniques and crafts, with an ostrich headed attitude towards the real problem of visual education; and on the other we have an attempted up-dating of the syllabus by emulating the trendy art gallery scene, turning the students into confused mimetics; they will be searching with the wrong equipment for that elusive"; recognition";. Under this second category art, as such, is treated as being far too precious a subject to withstand any analysis; the artist (or embryo artist) is seduced into thinking that he never really has to justify what he does: the die is cast for another aspect of the mystique."