Through a case study at an IT company we have attempted to ascertain how a company's organizational culture affects its designers' way of working. By examining what ”type” of designers the employees are and how this is reflected in their work, we hope to have correctly determined what their organizational culture looks like and thereby have achieved a plausible result in our study. Aside from two interviews with the company's CEO, we also performed eight observations at the company, where we tried to blend in with the employees, to better determine their way of working together. We have found that the designers' trust in their own instincts has led them to rarely act on feedback from clients – they only pick out the proposals which have a “mainstream” potential. We have also discovered that their design approach is something they don't feel inclined to discuss amongst themselves. As it is often “indescribable”, they go with their intuition and unspoken design conventions.

Lernangebote von hoher Lernqualität sind dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass sie Lernende dazu anregen, in Wissensräumen vertieftes Wissen zu erwerben und dieses effizient in praktisches Handlungswissen umzusetzen. In diesem Beitrag wird diskutiert, wie der didaktisch-methodische Ansatz Learners-as-Designers genutzt werden kann, um eine solche Lernqualität zu erreichen. Es wird gezeigt, wie Learners-as-Designers unter Nutzung computerbasierter Technologien sowohl in der universitären Lehre als auch in der betrieblichen Weiterbildung umgesetzt werden kann, und mit welchen Effekten, aber auch Herausforderungen eine solche Lehr-Lern-Konzeption verbunden ist.

The purpose of this study was to show how hiring standards of evidence for graphic designers in Utah County compared with the national standards of evidence. The four major national standards of evidence for hiring graphic designers, identified by American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and Goldfarb, in order of importance are portfolio, recommendations, personality, and education. The data from this study revealed that Utah County employer's standards of evidence matched up closely to national standards of evidence, but the order of importance was slightly different because personality was ranked ahead of recommendations and education.

"Reading Costume Design" identifies and theorizes an important shift in costume practices: in the mid-nineteenth century, it was common for actors to wear their own clothing onstage or to choose a garment from a theatre's generic stock, without coordination with other costumes or attention to the particular demands of a role. By the early twentieth century, however, costume was firmly established as an expressive artistic tool in building a character and shaping the complete theatrical experience, overseen by a professional designer who routinely received credit in the program. By focusing on this specific moment, my dissertation reclaims theatrical costume as an object of theoretical inquiry (a text), while maintaining its place as an object of material culture, fully embedded in a particular historical context. I use the figure of the professional costume designer - and her rising prominence across the performing arts after 1880 - as a lens to focus on the changing relationship between the stage, fashion, and visual culture. "Reading Costume Design" argues that this historical shift reveals an important change in the status of costumes: from craft to art. At the beginning of my period, costumes impressed audiences as bravura displays of wealth, spectacle, or craftsmanship; by 1920, theatre practitioners and audience members viewed costume as an expressive art form, and its designer as an artist. As art objects, costumes acquired additional semiotic value, conveying new kinds of information to spectators. Designers created costumes for audiences to "look through" - reading costumes not only for their surface beauty or accuracy but also for commentary or reflection upon the text or overall performance. As a form of expression in their own right, costumes interacted in more collaborative or critical ways with the literary and musical texts. I contend that in this fertile period, four kinds of artists made key contributions to this expanded expressive model of costume design: performers, directors, couturiers, and painters. I use the term "proto-designer" to denote these artists, who helped to shape the profession of costume design from adjacent fields. Each of my four chapters studies one type of proto-designer, focusing on two or three significant examples. Major figures discussed include Georg II of Saxe-Meinengan, Richard Wagner, Marietta Piccolomini, Ellen Terry, Lucy Duff-Gordon (Lucile), Paul Poiret, Edward Gordon Craig, Leon Bakst, and Pablo Picasso. "Reading Costume Design" shows how theatrical Modernism established norms of costume design that are still with us today, analyzing the consolidation of costume choices into the hands of one individual (the designer) as part of Modernism's investment in the single artistic consciousness. This project highlights the importance of costume design as an object of study, able to move across different genres within the performing arts (theatre, dance, opera) and to offer fresh perspectives on fields such as theatre history, media and celebrity studies, art history, gender studies, aesthetics, and material culture.

The requirement for a written element in the B.A (Hons) Arts degree has been in place since the Coldstream Report of 1960. Since that time, there have been discussions, scholarly articles and further government committees addressing the way that this component is delivered by universities and colleges. These discussions centre on the content, the assessment of the content and its relationship to students' own practice. There are many divergent views about how the subject, variously called contextual, critical or complementary studies, should be presented by the students in a way that has academic rigour and enhances studio practice. However, I have identified a gap in that literature: there also is a rich history of artists and, more recently, designers writing about their own and others' practice. I sought to establish whether or not the writing of established practitioners could be useful in improving students' own efforts and encouraging a synthesis between the written work in their final year journals, (an alternative to the traditional dissertation) and their studio practice. The methodology that seemed most appropriate was an instrumental case study, with data from interviews (transcriptions), text analysis and analytic induction of the writings by established practitioners and the students' writings about their own work and the work of others. Experience and by now conventional practice suggests that all students refer to the work of established practitioners, not always from their own chosen discipline. Although the students are not necessarily asked to research and write about other established practitioners, inevitably they will do so to engage with, identify and contextualise theory and history. There was a general lack of understanding about the complexities of the intended learning outcomes and, importantly, the sub-assessment criteria that was realised to be more difficult to explain and understand than the more traditional, essay method of the dissertation. This difficulty was mainly owing to the students' lack of experience in critical thinking and poor research skills when writing about their own work. The task for third year students was burdensome for some, but easier for those students who had critical studies embedded in their studio practice. In only one discipline were the tutors optimistic about the abilities of their students to understand the criteria and therefore likely to be successful in the assessment of the journal. This finding was mirrored in their students' responses. The lack of interest and wide knowledge of some tutors in comparison with other colleagues lead to a tension between what is currently learnt in the studio and what is learnt from non-studio teaching. I explored the relevant writings using the three themes of production, content and consumption. A comparison between students' and established practitioners' writing, using the criteria for the intended learning outcomes for the critical studies module, found that there were both some similarities and some important differences. On the basis of the evidence, the journal could provide the students with a more insightful understanding of their studio practice if there is: • A revision of the assessment criteria, using the saturation points of established practitioners writing in my analysis tables; • Much greater fostering of interest into the reading of established practitioners' writing; and• A team of tutors who are able and willing to teach critical studies/research alongside the studio work. These findings have implications for the training of the staff as well as the structure of the degree courses in art and design.

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Design, Architecture & Building. / The thesis explores the notions of immersive experience in museum exhibitions, and examines whether the communication of the exhibition content can be transmitted more effectively to visitors through the creation of an immersive environment. The study reviews the origins and changing interpretations of the term 'immersive experience', and draws upon the work of researchers including Heim (1998) and Bitgood (1990) to examine immersive experience in the context of museum exhibitions. The role of narrative in enhancing immersive experience in exhibitions is explored through the work of researchers including Hooper-Greenhill (2000) and the ideas of Joseph Campbell on myth, story telling, and the concept of 'hero'. Theories of effective communication and learning in the museum context are examined, as well as formal strategies that can be undertaken by museums to inform and facilitate communication and learning for the experience of the visitor. The author employs the methodology of 'participant observation', using her experience as Senior Designer at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney to reflect on the aspects of multi-sensory stimulation required for the communication process in an exhibition, and on what is achieved by the implementation of new technology into museum exhibition spaces. A number of exhibitions designed at the Powerhouse Museum by the author are used as case studies. The major outcome of the study is a theoretical framework on immersive experience that may be applied by museum designers and curators to enhance communication experience for visitors to exhibitions, or may be used by educators to enhance learning experiences for groups who use museums as learning environments. The thesis concludes with some ideas for further research in the area of immersive experience in the museum, including the development of a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of immersive experiences created by museum designers.

<p>The purpose of this thesis was to study how creativity can be improved within creative organizations, and the study was made both in Great Britain and in Sweden. We wanted to learn if creative employees have the possibility to use their creativity within their organization or if rules within the organization only hamper their creativity. We conducted interviews in both Sweden and in Great Britain and the focus on the study were on designers and product developers within the fashion industry. The research was a qualitative study consisting of a total of 7 semi-structured interviews. Designers and product developers feel that their creative ability sometimes gets hampered by their organization. We came to the conclusion that the manager need to be good at structure, trust, set up clear goals, conflict solving and communication and by that, let the organizations creative employees within it have the freedom to work at other places but at the office in order to get inspired by the environment.</p>

<p>Outsourcing är ett begrepp som blir allt vanligare i företag. Ett vanligt argument för att man väljer att outsourca vissa delar av verksamheten, är att det ger en möjlighet till att fokusera på kärnverksamheten och därmed uppnå större konkurrenskraft. Studien syftar till att undersöka hur externa designers kan skapa en visuell identitet på produkten, samt vilka faktorer är viktiga då externa designers ersätter en in-house designavdelning. En kvalitativ fallstudie har genomförts på DUKA, Axcent of Scandinavia och Gant. I dessa fall har alla på något sätt kontrakterat ut antingen hela eller delar av sin designverksamhet. För att på ett framgångsrikt sätt kunna besvara det angivna syftet upprättades en teoretisk referensram samt en börmodell för att belysa vilka faktorer som enligt teorin är väsentliga när externa designers ersätter en</p><p>in-house designavdelning. Studien har utförts genom intervjuer och enkätundersökningar, där en analys sedan upprättats för att belysa om det finns ett gap mellan vad företaget vill att produkten ska förmedla och kundernas uppfattning om produkten.</p><p>Studien visar att en rad faktorer kan urskiljas och att dessa är viktiga när företaget tar in extern designer. Det är viktigt att företaget arbetar integrerat, processtyrt och med långsiktiga relationer för att kunna föra över den tysta kunskapen. Därmed kan designkonsulten skapa en visuell identitet som stämmer överens med företagets profil. Detta gäller dock endast för de kunder som köpt produkten. Problematiken får ett större perspektiv då företaget ska kommunicera till de kunder som sett men ej köpt produkten. Här blir gapet större mellan den visuella identiteten och imagen. Därmed går det dock inte att endast utifrån ett motiv härleda lyckade samarbeten mellan företag och designkonsulter. För att designkonsulten ska skapa en visuell identitet på produkten som stämmer överens med företagets profil bör istället ett flertal andra faktorer beaktas.</p>

Outsourcing är ett begrepp som blir allt vanligare i företag. Ett vanligt argument för att man väljer att outsourca vissa delar av verksamheten, är att det ger en möjlighet till att fokusera på kärnverksamheten och därmed uppnå större konkurrenskraft. Studien syftar till att undersöka hur externa designers kan skapa en visuell identitet på produkten, samt vilka faktorer är viktiga då externa designers ersätter en in-house designavdelning. En kvalitativ fallstudie har genomförts på DUKA, Axcent of Scandinavia och Gant. I dessa fall har alla på något sätt kontrakterat ut antingen hela eller delar av sin designverksamhet. För att på ett framgångsrikt sätt kunna besvara det angivna syftet upprättades en teoretisk referensram samt en börmodell för att belysa vilka faktorer som enligt teorin är väsentliga när externa designers ersätter en in-house designavdelning. Studien har utförts genom intervjuer och enkätundersökningar, där en analys sedan upprättats för att belysa om det finns ett gap mellan vad företaget vill att produkten ska förmedla och kundernas uppfattning om produkten. Studien visar att en rad faktorer kan urskiljas och att dessa är viktiga när företaget tar in extern designer. Det är viktigt att företaget arbetar integrerat, processtyrt och med långsiktiga relationer för att kunna föra över den tysta kunskapen. Därmed kan designkonsulten skapa en visuell identitet som stämmer överens med företagets profil. Detta gäller dock endast för de kunder som köpt produkten. Problematiken får ett större perspektiv då företaget ska kommunicera till de kunder som sett men ej köpt produkten. Här blir gapet större mellan den visuella identiteten och imagen. Därmed går det dock inte att endast utifrån ett motiv härleda lyckade samarbeten mellan företag och designkonsulter. För att designkonsulten ska skapa en visuell identitet på produkten som stämmer överens med företagets profil bör istället ett flertal andra faktorer beaktas.

The purpose of this thesis was to study how creativity can be improved within creative organizations, and the study was made both in Great Britain and in Sweden. We wanted to learn if creative employees have the possibility to use their creativity within their organization or if rules within the organization only hamper their creativity. We conducted interviews in both Sweden and in Great Britain and the focus on the study were on designers and product developers within the fashion industry. The research was a qualitative study consisting of a total of 7 semi-structured interviews. Designers and product developers feel that their creative ability sometimes gets hampered by their organization. We came to the conclusion that the manager need to be good at structure, trust, set up clear goals, conflict solving and communication and by that, let the organizations creative employees within it have the freedom to work at other places but at the office in order to get inspired by the environment.