Top left: Ziyun Qi and Wan Jung Hung at a futuring workshop. Other images: The Cloud and a thesis presentation, both by Richard Clarkson

This is the latest installment of D-School Futures, our interview series on the evolution of industrial design education. Today we have answers from our own Allan Chochinov, partner of Core77 and chair of the Products of Design graduate program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

How different is industrial design education today than it was ten years ago? Will it look very different ten years from now?

I believe it's very different than it was a decade ago, and certainly will look different again in the medium-term future. Of course, much of this change is precipitated by tools and technology (digital manufacturing, physical computing, crowdfunding/sourcing platforms, etc.), but there have also been sea changes in the way we think about design and its offerings—the shift from product to service, systems thinking, design thinking, sharing ecologies, economies of abundance, interdisciplinarity—to name a handful.

But perhaps the biggest impact on design education will stem from one of the most important high-water marks right now: Design can finally be understood and engaged in as a more social, collaborative and transparent enterprise...hopefully with a discourse to match. So we need design programs whose pedagogy (both technical and philosophical) can respond to all these changes nimbly and quickly, and which understand design to be a fundamentally participatory enterprise poised to fortify for a time when the world desperately needs it most. (Of course, you could effectively argue that design has created most of the problems we're currently facing!) On the supply side, I think there will be many, many options for design education—from deep, prolonged investigations through undergraduate and graduate programs to less formal, a-la-carte classes, hackathon-inspired intensives and online learning. Design is unquestionably enjoying its moment right now, and we are thrilled to be a part of it.

Clockwise from bottom left: Allan Chochinov; Presence by Kathryn McElroy; Shine by Cassandra Michel (worn by Charlotta Hellichius)

What would you say to a prospective student who worries about the relevance of an ID education in an increasingly digital world?

Well, it depends on what you mean by "an ID education." The term has always been problematic—too often associated with aesthetic glazing in the service of industry. (And of course, the term "product designer" is well established as an interaction design role at this point.) Wise industrial designers have always seen the profession as something broader and more holistic, but if your definition of ID is traditional "form-giver," there is an obvious, rosy short-term future: There will be a strong demand for classic product designers as we move through the current fever for hardware and the Internet of things, and the current job market shows us that there are fresh employment rows to hoe. That said, if this work is relegated to mere skinning with no strategic, experiential, humanistic or environmental considerations, it will be a heartbreaker. The role of service design, UX, UI, IA and basic platform thinking is so critical to these nascent opportunities that industrial designers who don't possess those skills will, once again, be relegated to handmaidens—this time of the VC-fueled technosphere. If you want to worry about relevance, that's what you should be worried about.

What sets Products of Design apart from ID programs at other schools?

The program is entering its third year, so we can only now have a bit of perspective on how its deliverables align up with its promises. From its inception, we positioned the program as antithetical to the status quo; we challenge the notion of designing for the convenience of the privileged, and we also believe that the products of design can and must span multiple expressions—that's where the name comes from—from sets of instructions and social interventions to DIY hacks and speculative futures. We are also absolutely overt in our acknowledgment of complexity and uncertainty, and embrace design enterprise as a multi-modal, often-contradictory and sometimes-impossible place.

We consider ourselves a multi-lingual design program that acknowledges the necessary mash-up of disparate lenses of design. Our students are comfortable in three dimensions, but we also focus rigorously on systems thinking, research, graphic design, service design, food security, experience design, interaction design, business modeling, stewardship, social value and brand. We believe that design has transformed the world, but that the world is now demanding the transformation of designers—from generators of consumptive demand to creators of real and shared value. We think of ourselves at the sweet spot between design thinking and design making (both are essential; neither is sufficient), but as the program matures we are stressing blurry elements in the curriculum around more grown-up, complex approaches to stewardship, policy and futuring. Finally, we pride ourselves on teaching the most current and urgent material of the day, and we ensure that the students are immersed in relevance by surrounding them with an exceptionally large, all-adjunct and diverse faculty of working professionals, writers and thought leaders.

Clockwise from left: Samantha Moore on the Brooklyn Grange greenroof garden; Warp: Also Project at Wanted Design; Arduino studies in the Making Studio class

What's the job market like for recent graduates of your program? Is now a good time to embark on an ID career?

We have just three months ago graduated our very first class, and the early signals are strong. Those who wanted to get jobs and summer internships at top-tier and boutique consultancies have done so quickly (frog, IDEO, IBM, Doblin, LittleBits, Ecco, MakerBot, Chen Chen & Kai Williams, MakeShift, QVC and more), while those who are more interested in self-initiated enterprises are also well off the ground. We're proud of our students, and they've already received affirming recognition through awards, press, partner testimonials and crowdfunding. Our first-years are just coming off a banner summer with internships and project work, and I think it's a great time to embark on any design career, actually—not just ID.

If you had to give just one piece of advice to an incoming student in your program, what would it be?

That's an intriguing question, since most people would ask what piece of advice one would give to a departing student! For our program, it would clearly be around risk. We are not interested in creating products of design in ways that they have typically been created—I think we can all recognize the poisonous, alienating consequences of our wasteful economic model. Instead, we direct our attention to the difficult, conflicted, blurry territories that design must lend its talents and methodologies to. We deliberately decided not to have grades in our program so that students wouldn't be tempted to do "what was expected of them." Instead, we look for the exceptional—not in the facile "excellence" meaning of the word, but rather in taking risks and radical approaches that create exceptions to conventional ways of thinking about, and doing, design. If we can't keep making things the way we're making them, then we can't keep educating designers the way that we've been educating them. Maximum risk is the coin of the realm in our department. I've often said that I'd rather students fail spectacularly than succeed modestly; I think our times call for such an approach, and so should our educational institutions.

Thanks for the opportunity to share a bit of our vision! We are having an open house info session this coming November 8th, and we encourage readers to learn more about the program at productsofdesign.sva.edu.