THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A FIRST-YEAR TEACHING MANUAL ON THE PRINCIPLES OF GRAPHIC DESIGN

Abstract

The origins of design are found in the Italian word disegnare, which means 'create' (Pipes, 2008:8). Pipes further claims that graphic designers use their knowledge to make consumer goods and gadgets desirable. To create a design that will interest the viewer, a graphic designer uses the rules and principles of graphic design. The vision of the Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT), is to be "a globally connected African university of technology that focuses on the needs of Southern Africa and supports graduates for citizenship with skills and competencies in appropriate technologies", while the mission of the CUT is to deliver "high-quality appropriate science, engineering and technology (SET) academic programmes supported by applied research" (Central University of Technology, Free State, Calendar 2015). Having been a lecturer for more than ten years, it became clear to the researcher that students struggle to link theory to practice and application. Tempelman and Pilot (2010:262) state that "a first promising solution to this problem is to interweave theory and practice much closer". Tempelman and Pilot further mention that the interweaving of theory and practice can contribute to the building of a student's knowledge and skills. The use of graphic design principles will also lessen the time taken to complete a successful design because these principles can be used as a formula (Castelluccio, 2008:58). A non-experimental research design which can be classified into three categories, namely relational designs, comparative designs and longitudinal designs, but for the purpose of this study a comparative design was used, because the comparative design compares two or more groups on one or more variable. In this case the effectiveness of a teaching manual was determined according to the perceptions of three groups, namely second-, third- and fourth-year graphic design students and graphic design lecturers at the CUT as well as the graphic design industry as represented in this study by a number of graphic design studio owners. A stratified purposeful sampling method was followed which included students, lecturers and industry in the field of graphic design. As background to the study, a literature review was conducted, providing an overview of graphic design principles and manual design and theory guiding the study. The research was conducted in three phases: (1) a quantitative research was conducted where student perception questionnaires were used to determine the respondents' (students') perceptions on The Principles of Graphic Design manual; (2) basic individual interviewing were used to gather information from specifically targeted participants (Munro, 2014:59) such as the lecturers of Basic Design Principles in order to determine whether the students' skills and competencies are enhanced with the aid of the aforementioned Manual and computerised self-administered questionnaires (CSAQ) were used as data collecting method for industry (design studio owners) to determine if the Manual positively influences the industry experience for the student by minimising the time spent on a design and enhance the lecturer’s teaching. It was concluded that The Principles of Graphic Design manual has a positive influence on the employability of the students of the Department of Design and Studio Art at the CUT and that the Manual is pitched at the appropriate level.