Method Designing: The paradox of Modern Design Education

By Jessica Helfand

In this article, the author has compared the role of an actor with the role of graphic designers, and also relating "method" acting and method design as a more successful practice performed by each roles

- "Through the practice of what we have come to know, today, as
"method" acting, an actor could explore, identify and ultimately reveal the degree to which a character
could be a hugely complex human being with feelings, emotions and often conflicting desires."

To be a successful designer to produce good works, we'd have to understand the role to be another person, fitting ourself in the client's shoes.. and the most important is to perform with emotional honesty to truly engage the audience as a result.

Helfand mentions the positive and negatives of the method designing through our education. The positive is that young designers are trained as thinkers instead of the old service providers. and by doing so, we are able to locate our work in the path we have chosen and defined. The down side is that it is misleading design students to believe in that we are doing art by looking at so much art, and the very act of interpretation is itself the form.
"in being true to ourselves, we distance ourselves from a more universal truth,
the kind that designers, in making messages clear, are so naturally predisposed to understand."