So a bunch of print artists are upset that Maeda is turning their world upside down?
Why am I not surprised.
Since the OP seem so happy to worship the past here is a quote from Kirkegaard:
"People want progress, but fear change"
For those of you who don't know who Maeda is, perhaps you know two of his students. Casey Raes and Ben Fry who created the http://www.processing.org framework.
If there was anyone in the industry who could justifiably identify as a hacker AND a painter (http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html) it's John Maeda. I'm a proud owner of some of his art work.
I don't know the ins and outs of what has been going on with Maeda at RISD but when I heard he was going to become President there I was very confused as to why he would want such an administrative orientated role.
It's the classic example of taking a skilled craftsman, visionary ideas person, guru programmer, etc and putting them in a manager's role. They no longer can ply their craft nor are they necessarily the best person to actually perform that management/administrative function.
Granted he chose to take the role but I'm left wondering whether it was out of ego or a feeling a need to pursue career progression.
Not certain why I cannot up vote the published link, but I really liked it. I never enjoyed or like the hackers and painters essay, seemed very empty and I certain could not relate to it any way. Even accounting for confirmation bias, this post was interesting.
Granted he chose to take the role but I'm left wondering whether it was out of ego or a feeling a need to pursue career progression.
He seems to have decided in the mid-2000s that he wanted to turn his design ideas into more general, far-reaching philosophies applied to other areas, which I see his move into management as part of. I must admit to being a bit skeptical; I think he's a great designer but don't really buy the "it's like design but for X" sort of analogies. Sort of wish he stuck with art & design.
His first book in that vein was 2006's The Laws of Simplicity, which applied some of his design thinking to life in general. I didn't find it very interesting, but a lot of people did, so maybe it's a matter of taste. His upcoming book is on applying design ideas to leadership, Redesigning Leadership (forthcoming May 2011).
... Besides the provost, the director of the Museum, the director of Communications, the director of Financial Aid, the director of Alumni and Career Services, the director of Continuing Education, the director of Institutional Research, the director of the Office of Public Engagement, the director of the Writing Center, the vice president of Finance and Administration, and key members of Student Development, Human Resources, Financial Aid, Student Life, Museum staff, and Public Safety were all gone by March 2011.
Sweet Jesus, universities are so ridiculously top heavy. There is going to be a tremendous collapse when the tuition bubble pops and all the government money goes away.
Thanks for the additional context, definitely helps paint a better picture of the situation.
The money quote for me was this:
Maeda has been President of the University since 2008, when he took over the position from Roger Mandle — the longest-serving president in the school's history — who stepped down after receiving a vote of no confidence from RISD department heads in 2007. Mandle, like Maeda, came under fire by faculty members after proposing significant changes to the structure of the traditional RISD curriculum and accompanying financial decisions.
I'm a RISD alum and totally back the changes that Maeda is trying to make. You have a hotbed of amazing creative talent and a bunch of faculty who fear change and will not evolve to meet the needs of the market.
As an example, I am looking to hire 10 people, all of which could come from 1 department at RISD. Even though there post graduation placement rate is pretty low, it took several months of me chasing him down via email/phone to get a meeting and this is one of the more commercially oriented programs.
In a market where there is a lack of great UI designers RISD should be taking a lead positon, but it is stuck in decades past.
I do not know much about RISD, but this seems to be a common problem at most art schools/departments.
I had to teach myself everything about UI design while I was working on my degree in visual communications. None of my professors thought it was different enough than print design to warrant additional attention, or they were just afraid to say that they didn't know.
At the previous school I was at, trying to find some sort of synergy between the CS department's game-design program, and anything in the art department, also ran into some of those problems, more from faculty/department disinterest than student disinterest. There were actually quite a few students who were 3dsMax or Illustrator wizards, learned on their own time, but the art departments didn't see that sort of thing as in their scope at all.
Although to be fair CS departments sometimes get those complaints as well. We want to teach people fundamentals of computer science, but what a lot of other departments really wish we'd teach is practical programming/script-slinging, often in languages that none of our courses focus on (Fortran, Matlab, Perl).
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 49.3 ms ] threadWhy am I not surprised.
Since the OP seem so happy to worship the past here is a quote from Kirkegaard:
"People want progress, but fear change"
For those of you who don't know who Maeda is, perhaps you know two of his students. Casey Raes and Ben Fry who created the http://www.processing.org framework.
I don't know the ins and outs of what has been going on with Maeda at RISD but when I heard he was going to become President there I was very confused as to why he would want such an administrative orientated role.
It's the classic example of taking a skilled craftsman, visionary ideas person, guru programmer, etc and putting them in a manager's role. They no longer can ply their craft nor are they necessarily the best person to actually perform that management/administrative function.
Granted he chose to take the role but I'm left wondering whether it was out of ego or a feeling a need to pursue career progression.
He seems to have decided in the mid-2000s that he wanted to turn his design ideas into more general, far-reaching philosophies applied to other areas, which I see his move into management as part of. I must admit to being a bit skeptical; I think he's a great designer but don't really buy the "it's like design but for X" sort of analogies. Sort of wish he stuck with art & design.
His first book in that vein was 2006's The Laws of Simplicity, which applied some of his design thinking to life in general. I didn't find it very interesting, but a lot of people did, so maybe it's a matter of taste. His upcoming book is on applying design ideas to leadership, Redesigning Leadership (forthcoming May 2011).
Sweet Jesus, universities are so ridiculously top heavy. There is going to be a tremendous collapse when the tuition bubble pops and all the government money goes away.
A (somewhat) balanced set of opinions from current RISD students is over here: http://www.golocalprov.com/news/risd-president-comes-under-f....
The money quote for me was this: Maeda has been President of the University since 2008, when he took over the position from Roger Mandle — the longest-serving president in the school's history — who stepped down after receiving a vote of no confidence from RISD department heads in 2007. Mandle, like Maeda, came under fire by faculty members after proposing significant changes to the structure of the traditional RISD curriculum and accompanying financial decisions.
As an example, I am looking to hire 10 people, all of which could come from 1 department at RISD. Even though there post graduation placement rate is pretty low, it took several months of me chasing him down via email/phone to get a meeting and this is one of the more commercially oriented programs.
In a market where there is a lack of great UI designers RISD should be taking a lead positon, but it is stuck in decades past.
I had to teach myself everything about UI design while I was working on my degree in visual communications. None of my professors thought it was different enough than print design to warrant additional attention, or they were just afraid to say that they didn't know.
Although to be fair CS departments sometimes get those complaints as well. We want to teach people fundamentals of computer science, but what a lot of other departments really wish we'd teach is practical programming/script-slinging, often in languages that none of our courses focus on (Fortran, Matlab, Perl).