Understanding Aesthetics in Design Education

One of the more pressing issues that the product design profession faces today is that of sustainability. Within design education this is mainly addressed with a focus on the three r`s: recycling, reuse and repair. In her book entitled Aesthetic Sustainability: Product Design and Sustainable Usage, Kristine H. Harper argues that another way to create sustainable products is to obtain aesthetic durability that provides the user with an emotional connection or aesthetic nourishment [4]. Such an approach requires both broad and in-depth knowledge of aesthetic ideas, something on which contemporary product design education can focus in new ways. This paper explores the challenges of aesthetics in design education through a pilot study that aims to identify possible problem areas and further research opportunities by asking the following research question: What are the challenges with teaching aesthetics in a product design programme at bachelor level, and how do the applied teaching methods provide students with versatile tools that can facilitate innovation through design? This study uses a phenomenological approach with a focus on qualitative methods, consisting of in-depth interviews with two teachers as well as three students in order to also capture the students’ points of view. This method was triangulated with a literature review and an analysis of a variety of descriptions of aesthetics in the learning outcomes attached to each subject in the bachelor programme included in this study. The goal of these methods was to capture a multitude of perspectives on how aesthetics is taught and to discuss how this can empower students to use aesthetics in creating innovative and sustainable design solutions