“teachers tend to listen less often”

A jour­ney. A care­er is a jour­ney that lea­ves its mark on each if us. Tea­ching is a jour­ney for the tea­cher and the stu­dent. Both aspects can be cle­ar­ly felt in Sven Ing­mar Thies’ book “tea­ching gra­phic design, approa­ches, insights, the role of lis­tening and 24 inter­views with inspi­ra­tio­nal edu­ca­tors.” One feels his jour­ney through his care­er as a stu­dent in Ger­ma­ny and Eng­land (Lon­don), then as a prac­ti­tio­ner for lar­ge bran­ding agen­ci­es in Lon­don, and final­ly as an aca­de­mic in Japan and Vien­na. Along the way the aut­hor was for­med and picked up fri­ends, col­le­agues and acquain­tances which are now inter­view part­ners. The journey—just as the list of interviewees—is impres­si­ve, inter­na­tio­nal, cross-disci­pli­na­ry and high caliber.

The book is struc­tu­red into four sec­tions. The first sec­tion sets the sce­ne and defi­nes the term gra­phic design (which I thought was gre­at choice, as it is also my favo­ri­te term for the field). Here Thies defends this posi­ti­on in his balan­ced fashion: “Due to this con­ti­nuous expan­si­on, the wish to rena­me gra­phic design has come up again and again, which seems under­stan­da­ble at first. After all a new term seeks to cap­tu­re and reflect the latest deve­lo­p­ments. At the same time, howe­ver, it seems a bit like inven­ting new pro­fes­sio­nal titles so that every sin­gle employee has an indi­vi­du­al posi­ti­on to show on their busi­ness card. … Why insist on new nomen­cla­tu­re when tech­no­lo­gi­cal chan­ge gives rise to new media and forms of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on, but the sub­s­tance remains the same?” (p. 23) The next sec­tion ela­bo­ra­tes the author’s point of view on tea­ching, the third section—interviews—is by far the lar­gest (taking up two-thirds of the book) and richest sec­tion in the book. The fourth part of the book is a small coll­ec­tion of sam­ple assignments.

Thies’ obvious­ly win­ning per­so­na­li­ty shows in the long list of inter­views, in his enthu­si­asm and open­ness on the sub­ject of tea­ching, and also through his por­trait on page two. His love of lis­tening or per­haps for dia­lo­gue is pre­va­lent in the lin­gu­i­stic style of the book. Many parts of the book are struc­tu­red like a con­ver­sa­ti­on bet­ween the aut­hor and hims­elf. For exam­p­le: “Is the­re any action that tea­chers tend to employ less con­scious­ly? Is it the asking, lis­tening, spea­king, rethin­king or let­ting a per­son do some­thing? My expe­ri­ence from obser­va­tions and con­ver­sa­ti­ons with tea­chers and stu­dents is that tea­chers tend to lis­ten less often.” (p. 50) This is a clear strength of the book, the atti­tu­de of I am curious, and have a lot to learn, is ever pre­sent and chal­lenges one to reflect on their own tea­ching. The aut­hor breaks tea­ching down to the nit­ty-grit­ty from: punc­tua­li­ty, for­mats, assess­ment, feed­back, and the ever-pre­sent lis­tening. By unpack­ing tea­ching into smal­ler parts, Thies gives the rea­der an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reflect bit by bit on their own tea­ching methods and habits. It would be desi­ra­ble if the­re was a column for taking notes as you read.

The coll­ec­tion of assign­ments are also excel­lent, as they pro­vi­de a dif­fe­rent view into the tea­ching style of their ori­gi­na­tors. Obvious­ly the­re are books which have lar­ger coll­ec­tions of assign­ments (for exam­p­le: Tea­ching Gra­phic Design, Cour­se Offe­rings and Class Pro­jects from the Lea­ding Under­gra­dua­te and Gra­dua­te Pro­grams, Ste­ven Hel­ler, ed., 2003; The Edu­ca­ti­on of a Gra­phic Desi­gner, Ste­ven Hel­ler, ed., 1998) but they pro­vi­de an excel­lent con­trast to the con­ver­sa­ti­ons or inter­views, and round out the book a who­le. The inter­views are the best part of the book, a gre­at coll­ec­tion of design edu­ca­tors with very dif­fe­rent back­grounds, disci­pli­nes and strengths. Thies lets them speak, and encou­ra­ges them to talk about their tea­ching phi­lo­so­phy, suc­ces­ses and fail­ures. The alpha­be­ti­cal order keeps the mix colorful and inte­res­t­ing, and also hides how cle­ar­ly the peo­p­le con­nect to his own journey.

Unfort­u­na­te­ly, the book also has weak­ne­s­ses. As a nati­ve spea­k­er, I felt that the lan­guage was some­ti­mes a bit woo­den, and would have encou­ra­ged a more idio­ma­tic trans­la­ti­on style. Make no mista­ke, trans­la­ti­on is dif­fi­cult even in the best of times. Here we have peo­p­le from very dif­fe­rent cul­tures, making it har­der to get the style and the cul­tu­ral nuan­ces right. And alt­hough it is not a book about book design, the book is design-wise dis­ap­poin­ting, and the cover feels down­right nasty. This sur­pri­sed me the most. Here is an aut­hor with an illus­trious care­er, a mem­ber of one of the grea­test design uni­ver­si­ties in Euro­pe (that is not lack­ing in funds or talent), the design should have been spec­ta­cu­lar. Compa­re it to Adri­an Shaughnessy’s “How to be a Gra­phic Desi­gner Wit­hout Loo­sing Your Soul” or Micha­el Bierut’s “79 Short Essays on Design” and it is found wan­ting. Finally—and this is a minor point—I would have enjoy­ed a reflec­tion by the aut­hor on the inter­views, and what he took away from them at the end of the book.

In the final ana­ly­sis, the con­tents out weigh the for­mal nega­ti­ves. Thies’ book on tea­ching gra­phic design has a lot to offer many design edu­ca­tors, in terms of inspi­ra­ti­on, oppor­tu­ni­ties for reflec­tion, and the ever so important jour­ney out­side of one’s own bubble.