This year Anáhuac University celebrated its 50th anniversary. We reached out to the University’s School of Design to find out how it had celebrated this important milestone. We also took the opportunity to find out more about how the School prepares its students to compete in an increasingly complex and globally minded design environment.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about the School of Design at Anáhuac University and its guiding principles?
At Anáhuac University School of Design, we offer students a comprehensive education based on universal values. Our teaching method is focused on the training of designers with a broad view of the field of design, and is supported by academic research projects oriented to companies as well as the cultural and educational institutions of our country. This approach allows students to easily adapt to the current economic environment.
Our main objective is to promote the passion for design.
Q: Anáhuac University is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. How has the School of Design highlighted this important milestone?
The School of Design joined in the 50th anniversary celebrations with the 11th International Conference, entitled: “Design for Humanity”. We also celebrated by organising workshops, with the aim of breaking rigid standards conditioned by the immediate use of design, in order to build a product or service concept which not only impacts a specific area but transcends various fields of social life.
Those workshops brought together students, teachers and graduates from the four degrees: Industrial Design, Graphic Design, Fashion Design, Innovation and Trend Design and Multimedia. At the core of these meetings were the guest designers who have an outstanding track and professional record in the field of design at the national and international levels.
Q: The School of Design says it forms creative, humanitarian leaders who design with aesthetic, ethical and sustainable considerations in mind. How important is designing for impact and designing for a better world to the Anáhuac designer?
For our School, it is very important to break with the rigid standards conditioned by immediate usefulness. We seek to build a product or service that not only impacts a given area but transcends various fields of social life.
We are committed to our time and to our people, therefore, our motivation is “Designing for Humanity”.
Q: How does the School of Design prepare students for the specific demands of industrial design in Mexico while making sure they are also well equipped to be a part of the global design community?
We incorporate our instructional design through blended learning and online courses and internationalisation through courses taught in English.
The student exchange programme, which places students at universities throughout the world, is growing. It is proposed that the training of our students should cover the following points:
- Competitiveness: local, national and global
- Flexibility: task and career switching (the practice involves teams that come together to perform a certain task, dissolve and regroup with new capabilities). Designers need flexibility and great skills for networking
- Teamwork
- The growing importance of human capital
- Creativity: Designers must have the ability to create environments that are appropriate for creative thinking and to develop intellectual capital
Q: What exciting projects/opportunities do you see for the School of Design in the next few years?
In the coming years, we seek to csolidate the integration of our students in projects linked to artisans in order to generate design solutions. The alliance between designers and artisans is becoming a collective phenomenon in Latin America.
The “craftsmanship with design” process incorporates a handmade object as well as industrial and digital production aspects, making each piece unique. The creative line is given in the synthesis of craft production, and multiple technology paths represent collective and cultural values which merge into contemporary proposals.
The raw materials with which the craftsman produces his pieces are: glass, wood, clay, metal, and stone. These are materials whose nobility lies in being natural, renewable, and recyclable in addition to possessing essential and aesthetic qualities.
