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Thinking of doing a design PhD? Trust me, I'm a doctor.

By Andy Polaine - December 28, 2010

in design.edu | Columns

In design post-graduation education the PhD is fast becoming the new Masters. This partly reflects the maturing of design research, but is also a response to the need for institutions to beef up their research quota and the attendant external funding. If you want to teach at a design college, the expectations of some institutions are often difficult to fulfill. Many ask for a PhD and several years of commercial practice, preferably current. It's a tough call - both are extremely time hungry and it's hard to do both well.

A Masters is often the terminating degree for a designer heading off professionally (certainly in the USA). For others it is a return the pleasure of self-determined projects having worked in agency life for a few years. But a PhD is a different beast to a Masters. I know of several designers who "fancy the idea" of doing a PhD and there are plenty of Masters students who are attracted to it, either because they want to expand their MA work or because they're not really sure what to do next.

Having officially become Dr. Polaine earlier in the year as well as having taught post-graduate students for many years, I thought I would offer some thoughts on the journey. As always, your mileage may vary.To PhD or not to PhD? There are plenty of reasons for wanting to start a PhD, but they are often not the ones that help you finish it. The problem is that you don't know this until you have started. Here are some of the common ones:

1. I don't know what I want to do for a career yet. A PhD will give me time to work it out.

Researching and writing a doctoral thesis is as much an act of endurance than anything else. If you don't have a clear idea in mind and the patience to write many thousands of words, read those words more than you care to remember and edit them ad infinitum, you are likely to drop out. One of the things that keeps you going - alongside simple bloody mindedness to just finish such a long-form project - is the interest in the area you are writing. If you don't have this up front, you're asking for trouble. A PhD is a dangerous drug for procrastinators.

2. I'm really interested in this subject and want to go deeper into it.

Great, but be prepared to be very bored by it after five years. As mentioned above, having a deep interest in the subject is one of the main motivators, but it's a mental fuel-depot that you burn through by the end. That's not to say I'm not still interested in the subject matter of my own PhD, but I felt pretty spent afterwards. It has really taken me about a year to start getting interested in interactivity and play again.

3. Nobody has researched/written about this area yet and I have a breakthrough idea.

Yes they have, you just don't know of it.

Although one of the main premises behind a PhD is that you contribute original knowledge to the field, as soon as you start researching more deeply you will find many texts and ideas almost identical to your own. Initially, this can be deeply depressing and I know several people who give up around this point (the drop-out rate of doctoral students is high). If you can persevere, you will not only find the cracks in the existing knowledge, but also work out how to re-configure it and build upon it. This re-thinking is your original contribution to the field. As Stephen Johnson explains, innovative ideas are usually incremental and take time, effort and luck.

4. I want to do a PhD, but I don't like writing much - I'm a designer after all.

Even a practice-based PhD requires writing and I can highly recommend writing as a creative process that's quite different from any other I know, especially in the digital age that designers work in. I expect activities like carpentry and sculpture are similar, but my skills in those areas are sub-kindergarten, so I can only speak from the crafts I know. I know many designers sketch a great deal, but it's different to writing.

I have learned more about the creative process through writing than I have through designing and the act of putting your thoughts down in a structured text does a lot to structure your thinking. Writing a PhD is like writing a book and you need to find a way to enjoy the act of writing in order to make it through the other side. Without this, the word count will seem like running a marathon wearing concrete boots.

Some people do their PhDs in teams or groups, but even in those cases the bulk of the writing (and often data-wrangling) is a lonely process. Like any writing, you just have to sit down and do your pages every day until you finish. Presenting papers and forming discussion groups all help ease the loneliness.

I think designers are sometimes scared of writing because their school education has ruined it for them. Think of writing as an act of design, except your tools are words, sentences, paragraphs and chapters. It will set you free to hack your text around just like you would any other material. Preciousness is the enemy of good writing - as William Faulkner said, "kill your darlings". (Actually Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch came up with "murder your darlings" first, which just proves the point that nobody is 100% original, eh?).

The plus side of the PhD proceess

If the above sounds rather negative, it's only because I want to spare you any illusions. There are many good things about taking on and, preferably, completing a PhD.

If you are planning to work in academia or research, it is now often a formal requirement for the job. The process also gives you a sense of rigor and deeper understanding of your area on an intellectual level that can be hard to make space for in the commercial world. Most commercial projects quite rightly don't have that kind of timescale and you have to drop parts of the process in order to get the deliverables our the door and within budget. They also tend to have much shorter timescales. A PhD is one of the few chances to set up your own project, finish it "the right way", and to a depth that a Masters doesn't offer. Despite the loneliness of the writing, it is a luxury.

It's important not to underestimate the value of becoming an expert, whether you work in academia or not. About two-thirds of the way through my PhD, I wasn't sure if I was going to carry on working in academia and couldn't see the point of doing a PhD otherwise. Somewhat swayed by Tom Coates' post-rationalism of why he gave up doing his PhD, I was ready to throw in the towel.

I am very thankful that my supervisor, Professor Ross Gibson, gave me some excellent advice and encouragement that saw me through to the end. He pointed out that the feeling of accomplishment that comes with finishing such a project as well as the sense of becoming the expert had great personal value. It almost sounds a little trivial, egotistical even, but it kept me going through the editing and re-structuring of the many, many drafts.

My examiners gave me very useful critique and feedback and I'm very thankful for it. Although they had experience and insights to offer, I realised that I knew more than them about my chosen subject. This is as it should be. A PhD topic is usual quite narrowly defined, but you go very deep into it. As learners we are so used to deferring to a higher authority on a subject it is rather eerie when you realise you are the authority on the subject.

De-coupling the reason for doing a PhD from its increasing necessity in academia was useful for me. This meant doing the PhD for its own sake, not for the qualification. I am a great starter of projects, but often lose interest once I have worked it all out in my head and understand the patterns and connections. But understanding those things in your own head is different from explaining them carefully to others. Quite apart from the intellectual stimulation and rigour that writing my PhD entailed, completing it was a valuable life experience.

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Gyaviira Luwaga

5 years ago

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I have started the journey of writing my research proposal in application for a PhD in visual communication and after spending countless hours reading material that didn't add value to my research, I seemingly landed on papers and numerous thesis that are similar to my topic in the area of product design. To be honest, I was perplexed. After reading this, I have realised that that's normal and that this shouldn't stop me from continuing the quest to discover unanswered questions in my subject area. Thanks Polaine for sharing this exciting experience. Would be honored to consult you more...

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Kaashif Ahmed

7 years ago

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Thanks for the great writeup. I have a doubt and would be grateful if you can provide some insights on the same.
If I am seeking a career in academia ( examining the information design route ), then does it also mean that I will have to be "industry relevant" so to speak ? I have over a decade of industry experience but the main draw towards Ph.D and academic career is to phase out life governed by corporate culture and do original university research.

It seems counter-intuitive of sorts that the expectation is to be working in the industry AND teach when the objective of research is to push new ideas which the industry should follow. This is not how it is for engineering and management, why is it so for design, if I may ask ?

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Adam Valentiner

9 years ago

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What schools offer a PhD then?

For those of us still determined to look into applying into Ph D programs what era some good schools in Ph D in Design . I know this is sort of hard to rate, depending on your interest but while researching I don't see a lot of schools with Ph D. programs so any feedback would def help.

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franklin

10 years ago

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Andy,

Thanks for the service mindset that motivated the production of this article. Being so kind as to disabuse so many of a belief design schools need more doctoral students.

Did you ever say that? Of course you did not; you are reliably a gentleman. But you are absolutely correct this field is not about being a design producer. Instead this degree is about training to be (among other things) a design motivator which of course has nothing to do with creating any other non-written material.

And look your generosity has inspired the giving of so many others. You are a saint.

Bless you for your generosity, and I hope the best for you in all of your future pursuits.

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Peter

13 years ago

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I will chime in with my thanks to Andy for writing this and also voice my support for the points he made.
It sounds like there a few of us out there working on PhDs in the design area who have found this post useful. I am in the write up stages (after periods of procrastination, pursuing side projects and dealing with demands of my day job).

On supervisors, I spent some time finding the supervisor who had an approach to research and a design practice I could align myself with as well as being someone I could work with for 7 years. Then I enrolled with the university they worked in. A good supervisor can make or break a project. I think identifying a good supervisor is more important than the reputation of the institution. If the institution does not have people who align with your area of interest of your preferred approach you could be in for a hard time.

All the best for the other PhDs candidates out there....
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James

13 years ago

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Thanks Andy,

I'm as I write this at the draft, edit and re-draft stage; feeling overstretched and exhausted by the subject and thesis size.

Your words have helped pick me up and push me on again towards the end game.

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ravi sawhney

13 years ago

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Great article, thank you. Much to my surprise and delight, I was honored PhD a few years ago by the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. And... the credential does carry weight, especially with those who have higher degrees. They also know that, its like any other qualification; it sets expectations of excellence, commitment, knowledge and know how. But beyond this, it provides a sense of reassurance to others.
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Duncan

13 years ago

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Hi Andy,

I'm currently deciding whether to do a PhD after a masters in mechanical engineering and your thoughts seem to chime with most of the other postgrads I've spoken to, so thank you.

You say that several doors have been opened up to you now that you have a doctorate. My question is what doors? What roles specifically require doctorate level education or is it simply the title that would allow a consultancy to charge a premium to its clients for your work? I'd like to do the PhD for the intellectual pursuit but I would hope it would improve my employability at the same time.

Thanks (and happy new year),
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Ricardo

13 years ago

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You are right, the PhD is important if you want to pursuit a teaching career or you want to research about any specific area in Design Not sure if is useful for commercial designers? today many of them are taking master as consequence of the academic inflation, but if you analyse in deep the curriculum in many Universities around the world look like a continuation of the same subjects done in the undergraduate course, (maybe because the students jump up straight away from the undergraduate level to the master level without any commercial experience).My concern is if this could this happen at PhD level?
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Ricardo

13 years ago

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You are right, the PhD is important if you want to pursuit a teaching career or you want to research about any specific area in Design Not sure if is useful for commercial designers? today many of them are taking master as consequence of the academic inflation, but if you analyse in deep the curriculum in many Universities around the world look like a continuation of the same subjects done in the undergraduate course, (maybe because the students jump up straight away from the undergraduate level to the master level without any commercial experience).My concern is if this could this happen at PhD level?
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Axel

13 years ago

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Hi Andy,
Thanks a lot. That sums up a lot of my experience doing the PhD. What I found difficult is also that in the beginning you don't really know what a good supervision should look like. It is only through the process and the discussion with other students that you find out over time what is going well or bad. Considering, that a detour might cost you a year or more, that is a hard way of learning. I finished my PhD with the conviction that now I had all the knowledge to actually start a PhD and do it properly this time. ;-) I can only recommend PhD students in design to have a very careful look at the institution and at the setting they want to study in. Talk with other students that are doing their PhD or have finished it, talk to professors and supervisors before you apply!
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Susan Wyche

13 years ago

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Thank you for writing this. It is important that more designers pursue PhD.

In your post you didn't mention FUNDING! This is a central part of any PhD! If you are worried about paying your gas bill or rent you can't focus on research. I am not sure how funding works in Australia but in the US it is difficult to get paid to pursue a PhD in Design.

I recently finished my PhD in Human-Centered Computing at GaTech and was fully funded for 6 years and had minimal teaching requirements. This is one of the benefits of pursuing a PhD at a major research university in a computer science department.

If you are considering a PhD take a look at Human Computer Interaction type programs housed in computer science departments because they often have more financial resources than design programs.

Getting paid to do your research is the best way to get a PhD!
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Simon

13 years ago

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If only I'd had this a couple of years ago. Am in the writing up stages now (about to open endnote and word to write more on my methodology chapter after I comment here).

You raise some interesting and very true points. I've almost dropped out at least twice, but I'm stubborn and what to get it done.

We are quite fortunate in Australia, that we can actually finish a PhD reasonably (or so the universities think) in 3 years. So I've gone 7 years straight through uni, undergrad to PhD. I won't be sticking around in academia, but I can always come back later.

The way I've been looking at it for the last 4 months or so, is that no matter what I do, no matter where I go, no one can take the title of Dr away from me, and it will open many doors that quite likely would have remained shut.

I agree, it's been a valuable life experience, and I've learnt more about myself in this time than any other. I always say to people that a PhD is not about the work/research. Thats the easy part. The hard part is the emotional rollercoaster, and getting the drive to actually get up and work on it, even when you don't want.

Here's to submitting!

Thanks Andy.
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Andy Polaine

13 years ago

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Hi Siddhartha and Chris - thanks for the comments. I think the purpose of doing a PhD in design really needs to be personally driven first and foremost. You have to want to do it otherwise any other reasons (such as having to do it to keep/get a job) are going to be less motivating.
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chris

13 years ago

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Thanks for the article, the purpose of post grad design education seems to be a bit blurry, its refreshing to read something that sheds some light on the subject.
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Siddhartha Joshi

13 years ago

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Thanks for writing this, it was a good read. I am also an Industrial Designer seriously thinking about pursuing a PhD in Design and an article like this surely helps.
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