Art & Design: Our Shifting Agenda?
By Ged Gast; NSEAD
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There have been times when the subject we now define as Art and Design was simply called Art, although Design has also been used in association with Art for almost 200 years.
If we go back to the 19th century, we see the establishment of Government Schools of either ‘Art’ or of ‘Design’ in large cities around the country, starting with the first Government School of Design in London in 1837, now called the Royal College of Art. These Schools developed the artists and designers of the future. Design in particular at this time was very much rooted in the craft industries and the product of ornamentation, architecture and decoration as well as early iterations of what we now think of as bespoke product design. This was always seen from the outset as a strand of the fine-arts. Prior to this and within the 1904 Board of Education Regulations for Secondary Schools, the prescribed subject based syllabus for pupils of 13+included ‘drawing’ and ‘manual instruction’ within the preparatory curriculum which also included ‘handicrafts’. ‘Interestingly the term ‘Art’ doesn’t appear at the time’ (1).
This confirms two things. Firstly, that the term Design has been in use in association with the study and practice of Art for two centuries and secondly, the content of our curriculum has evolved over time, in response to changing societal agendas into three main strands, that of Art, Craft and Design. This was primarily in response to the need for craft skills and engineers, for factory work and manufacturing of domestic products, ornamentation, the creation of buildings, interiors and fittings made from clay, glass, metal, textiles and new manufactured materials. At the same time, there was a need to supply and sell products to a growing society with disposable income. This in turn led to newspaper advertising and to the commercial arts, magazine illustration, poster design, billboards, and eventually to packaging, product design and all forms of advertising.
Josef Albers Class from the Bauhaus:
Through the 20th Century we have seen an evolution in Design. Sometimes this is directly in response to opportunities in manufacturing, coupled with the creation of new materials and a demand for products driven by population growth, the move from rural to industrial economies, growth of cities and even war played a part. The Bauhaus that emerged in Weimar’s Germany in the late 1920s is an example of a National School of Craft that operated primarily as Art and Craft, evolving into Design due mainly to the multi-specialism approach to their curriculum. Their multi-disciplinary learning programmes led to greater creativity and the amalgamation of fine arts, crafts, theatre arts, silversmithing, photography and design to name but a few of the specialist modules studied. Their Preliminary Course and programmes were taught by emerging innovators, practising artists, designers and architects such as Walter Gropius, Josef Albers, László Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky, Oskar Schlemmer and Paul Klee. It is largely this approach that still defines our art schools and in particular the Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, taken by students prior to the selection of a specialist degree. Interestingly these days, over 90% of all Art College Degree courses are in a Design specialism.
Great Britain had its own Bauhaus colleges. The Central School of Art and Crafts was established in 1896, for the industrial application of decorative design. Similarly, Camberwell School of Art had similar objectives from 1898, with a curriculum supporting the trades and no provision for amateur drawing and painting. From the 1920s, the Central School of Art and Crafts (funded by London County Council) sought to support British handicrafts and industries by maintaining their ancient traditions. By 1947, the school appointed fine artists as teachers to Craft Departments in a programme of ‘Basic Design’ leading to successful specialist courses in typography and jewellery, to ‘educate but not to train’(2). This was the antithesis of the workshop approach. They viewed their role in direct competition with the Royal College of Art, whose funding by The Board (Ministry) of Education had an obligation to ‘serve the economic life of the country’ (3).
Central School of Arts and Crafts - boys engaged in metal work before the move to Camberwell.
In schools, Art as a subject or aspect of drawing and handicrafts, has existed for over a century. In private schools the study of Western fine arts developed more rapidly than in state schools. Possibly in response to a belief in the value of ‘Cultural Capital’, in comparison to ‘state education’s’ role in educating for work.
In the last 100 years, society and even educators have found it easier to call the subject ‘Art’ rather than ‘Art and Design’. It is easier to write a three-letter word, to create signs and labels, fill in forms and as a shorthand when discussing the subject with colleagues. But also, because in the same way the Royal College of Art, and our Art Schools use the term ‘Art’ as a shorthand description, while predominantly being centres of design education.
Perhaps this creates a problem, which is really more of a challenge. Since the publication of the National Curriculum in 1991, we have had a changing creative agenda, with much published guidance focusing on the contextualisation of learning. Supporting this we have focused on ‘great’ and mostly Western art. Many examples have been historic fine art, primarily paintings, rather than contemporary work. Critical and contextual studies promoted looking at and talking about fine art, supported by galleries and museums wishing to make their collections more accessible, and with publications modelling these approaches. At the time this was introduced, far more craft or design was taught. Secondary departments were largely well-equipped with clay, sculpture, textiles and print facilities, and they were staffed by specialists. The new subject of Technology and then D&T was just starting to define its scope with an emphasis on applied technologies and the rising star of ‘Design’. Although the approach to design in response to a purpose was fundamentally different to that of designing creatively, in and through art and design.
the textiles studio at Central School of Arts and Crafts before the move to Camberwell.
It is no surprise that contexts and exemplars for design were being commissioned and developed for D&T with the support of The Design Council. Art and design by comparison were and still are largely under the auspices of The Art Council, with no remit for Design and few similar connections with design industries.
The intervening years have been unkind to both subjects, with cuts to budgets, then staff, then specialist facilities. Workshops and craft facilities have been reassigned to subjects expanding in response to EBacc obligations and reporting measures. It really didn’t help but the National Curriculum at this time, may have listed what teachers ‘should’ teach, including mention of crafts, architecture etc, but with a dwindling team of specialists you inevitably lose the knowledge, skills and capacity to deliver, and your agenda is changed. Kilns were turned off and walled-up, potter’s wheels and screen-printing tables removed to make space for increasing class sizes. budget cuts resulted in curriculum narrowing and a move to cheaper media choices. Carousels and shorter projects for half-termly monitoring and reporting made sustained investigations, processes and techniques almost impossible.
For about 15 years in the 90’s and early 00’s, art and design also made a real and meaningful contribution to student’s digital education, as part of another changing educational agenda. The ICT national curriculum required schools to teach digital visual literacy using a graphics program. Many schools bought Photoshop and then Adobe Creative Suite or similar, supporting both ICT and art and design projects in photo imaging, image generation/manipulation, animation and multi-media narratives, film, typography and graphics. This brought advantages to both subjects, not least, some centrally funded computers, imaging devices, printers and whole school software contracts, separate from art and design budgets. Both art and design and D&T were amongst the most successful users of digital technologies. In 2010 however, Coalition politicians thought specialist ICT lacked rigour, resulting in the return of Computer Studies. This caused a cut to whole school ICT budgets, the loss of specialist imaging software and equipment was allowed to become obsolete. Department budgets alone could not sustain the ICT investment needed without cutting other practical media (except for digital photography), taking us from innovative practice to zero practice within a few years.
I make a point of mentioning this period of digital innovation and then collapse for two important reasons, because they inform how schools and society think about design. Firstly, art and design predominantly used ‘Bitmap’ software for image manipulation (e.g. Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro) for ink jet printing, projection and screen display. D&T on the other hand, mainly used ‘vectoring’ software as this retains design data while being rescaled, modified and expanded. This type of software drives their plotters, laser and blade cutters, circuit diagram etching and routing for CAD CAM outputs, drafting and prototyping. Secondly, although art and design lost their digital infrastructure and funding almost overnight, D&T retained their equipment and use of vectoring software because it was specified in their curriculum. It is here that we see society look at the two subjects and suggest D&T has the ‘Design’ focus, as evidenced by the CAD CAM applications in their design and make tasks. Art and design by comparison lost their digital curriculum funding and the resources necessary to continue a Creative Industries Project focus. This caused them to withdraw into largely critical and contextual, gallery art focused projects, ‘issues-based’ contexts, meaning making and most recently embracing the need for cultural breadth or a community relevant curriculum.
The problem is, art and design dropped the ‘Design’ ball whilst juggling the many ‘curriculum’ balls we were expected to keep in the air to maintain our subjects’ breadth. Through the loss of funding for specialist teachers, equipment and studios, we also lost societies perception of our contribution to the Design and Creative Industry agendas.
None of this curriculum has disappeared though, because we still are Creative Industries focused, as well as all the Arts, Crafts, Architecture, Design, Engineering and Media/Games industries. Many of which are still growing faster than other UK industries. Both subjects have their own role to play in the complementary role of educating the designers of tomorrow. We both supply the Design Industries career pipeline, as well as Engineering and Digital Industries. Design is about the everyday, it is about process and product, function and aesthetic, environment and sustainability, changing and enhancing peoples’ lives, taking us forward with the knowledge, skills and creative capacity to innovate, originate and function individually or in teams. Our curriculum agenda has changed over the last 200 years and will keep evolving. We just need to retain our ability to absorb and include these innovations, media, processes and techniques into our curriculum. Finding the best way to build engaging learning into our richly creative contexts.
1 A Practical Guide to Teaching Art and Design in the Secondary School. Edited by Andy Ash & Peter Carr. Chapter 1: Remapping the Curriculum: A Landscape Designed for the Future. Ged Gast and Andy Ash. Routledge (2024)
2 & 3 Bauhaus Goes West: Modern art and design in Britain and America. Alan Powers. Thames & Hudson (2024)
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