From Graphic Designer to Agent of Change: Role Transition through the Approach of Entrepreneurial Education

OVERVIEW

Pedagogical inertia has been prevalent in graphic design education by focusing mainly on the technical and intuitive aspects of the profession. This pedagogical unbalance has been anchoring practitioners as technicians, rather than empowering them to become citizen designers. Entrepreneurship, as a pedagogical method, can offer alternative approaches for improving teaching and learning in the field of design. Enterprise education has the potential to help students develop a set of skills to transition into a new role and be better able to face the social and environmental issues of the twentieth-first century. In this doctoral research project, existing teaching models that foster students’ entrepreneurial spirit are distilled through observation and interviews with the different stakeholders in the design education ecosystem. This research proposes a relevant and coherent approach to entrepreneurial education to improve graphic design education.

Keywords:

• graphic design education
• entrepreneurship
• agent of change

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my thesis directors, Michel de Blois from Université Laval in Québec City and Xavier Lesage from ESSCA School of Management in Paris, for their assistance at every stage of this research project. I would also like to thank my good friend Alan Duncan for reviewing and editing this article in English.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Geneviève Raîche-Savoie

Geneviève Raîche-Savoie is a graphic design instructor and communication designer living in Québec City, Canada. She is engaged in a practice which puts emphasis on environmental awareness and positive social change.