Design Education Talks Ep. 75 - Lisa Winstanley

Lisa Winstanley is an Assistant Professor in the School of Art Design and Media. For the past decade she worked internationally as a design educator, however her academic career is also underpinned by over 20 years of commercial experience; working in the UK as a creative practitioner and design consultant.

As a visual communicator, Lisa’s work has won many prestigious design awards including, 3 A’ Design Awards 2020, a Platinum Award at the annual Spark Design Awards 2020 and her branding work has been placed in the top 25 International Graphic Designs of both 2019 and 2020 in the Creative Quarterly journal best 100 Annual. Her work has been showcased in exhibitions internationally, in venues such as the Oculus in New York City, Barcelona, Zurich, Mexico and China. Lisa’s work is part of the permanent collections at MOOD - Museum of Outstanding Design. Italy and The Chicago Athenaeum Museum Collection.

Lisa’s research reviews the intersections between ethical & collaborative design practices and pedagogies. She is interested in investigating multidisciplinary collaborations which allow designers to work together with society, to produce life-centric design solutions for society. Her research reviews what tools can help facilitate such collaborations and what systems need to be in place for effective and meaningful collaboration to transpire. In short, Lisa’s work investigates how we can leverage design ethically and collaboratively for the benefit of our society.

Lisa's creative work and latest research projects can be viewed here: www.lisawinstanley.com

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Lefteris Heretakis: 0:01

Hello, and welcome to design education talks by the New Art School. Our guest today is Lisa Winstaney. Welcome, Lisa.

Lisa Winstanley: 0:12

Hello, hello Lefteris thank you so much for having me here today. It's my pleasure to be part of your podcast

Lefteris Heretakis: 0:19

its fantastic to have you here. So tell us about your your work.

Lisa Winstanley: 0:24

Okay, where to start, I wear many hats. I, educator design educator and I have been for the last decade or so. I'm also a practising designer, and a researcher design researcher. So I wear these different hats on numerous occasions many times a day. And sometimes I forget to switch between them between them, but it makes for a fun experience. So a little bit of background for context. I'm originally from the UK, where I worked for about 15 years as a practising designer in the graphic design and visual communication fields. I predominantly worked in sort of packaging design and design for food and beverage industry was was my forte in the UK. However, I, after about 15 years long story, but I ended up in the Middle East, in Kuwait. And there, I found it quite difficult to get work in the design industry. So I transitioned to design education. And I worked at an all women's college over in the Middle East in Kuwait for about eight years, and then moved over to where I currently am in Singapore, Nanyang Technological University here in Singapore, where I'm an assistant professor in the School of Art Design and Media. So it's quite a challenge being a sort of Art and Design School in a technological university. But we make it work. And we are all about tackling new challenges and figuring out how we can fit within that sort of big university ecosystem. So my role within the school, again, is like I say, threefold, I'm an assistant professor in a teaching capacity, and I teach visual communication courses, typography courses. Currently, I'm teaching illustration for designers, and design thinking as well. So that's my sort of teaching scope. In terms of research, my research sort of sits in the intersections between ethical creative practices, and collaborative creative practices and pedagogies. So I really look at the spaces in between those places, and how we can generate tools and resources for effective ethical collaboration, to sort of bring about design for a positive change in the world. So that's where my sort of research sits. And then on top of that, I'm a practising designer, as well, again, still within the sort of scope of visual communication. I love making posters, I love really trying to use my craft to advocate for the different sort of social and cultural issues that we're facing in our society. And hopefully, I can bring all of those things into the classroom and put back and get our students to participate in this kind of things as well encourage them to research encourage them into social and cultural issues. So yeah, lots of different hats. And I try and combine them multiple times.

Lefteris Heretakis: 4:18

As many questions at once. Let's pick it up from the beginning. You said all women's college that's very interesting compared So how was your How was your beginning of your teaching? Tell us about how you, you started. Wow. That would be very interesting. All

Lisa Winstanley: 4:35

right. So like, like as long story short, I was a practising designer in the UK for many, many years. And then I met my husband and we moved over to the Middle East for his work, and I just couldn't get a design job in that particular space. Because at the time, I was not multilingual. I couldn't read or write Arabic, which kind I know if position me outside of the design market soon as I couldn't really communicate in that sense, I could know speak a little bit of Arabic but my reading or writing is terrible. So I basically went back to school, I had a, my education in the UK, I was trained as a designer. I had a national diploma and a higher National Diploma, which I guess to the American system would be like an associate degree. But then I sort of went directly into industry after that, and then work my way up from junior designer to senior designer and art director, and design consultant. So when I moved over to Kuwait, I realised to get a job, I needed a bachelor degree as well. So I went back to school, oh, after like 15 years out of school, I went back to school, and I did a top up degree to get my bachelor's, again, in Visual Communication. At that point, I transitioned into design education in and I worked, as I said, an all women's college in in Kuwait, where I taught on the graphic design programme there for from about 2011 to 2018. And it was a wonderful experience, it was very challenging at times teaching. with English as a second language can be quite a challenge. But and as I said, at the time, I didn't speak any Arabic Now I'm slightly better and can just about hold the conversation, but it was a Australian College in Kuwait. So the teaching language was in English. And all the students were expected to conduct the classes in English as well. And yeah, it could be challenging, there could be sort of miscommunication, but we made it work. And the students were amazingly creative over there, I loved the use of colour and their imaginations. And, and it was a really mind opening experience for both me and then to sort of be exposed to these different cultures within the classroom setting, and really embrace that. And I think I probably learned as much from them as they did for me. And I think, for me to be able to take my experience from the design industry into the classroom as well. Was was something that really helped me. And I'm still in touch with many, many of the students from from, from Kuwait. Hello, everybody. I'm going to ask them all to listen to this broadcast after it's proven. So yeah, and then I went back to school again, to do my postgraduate qualification. And at that point, I, we were looking to move out of Kuwait and we really didn't have a sort of plan B. So I sent out my CV to multiple universities around the world. And I was super fortunate enough to get an interview NTU at Nanyang Technological University, which is ranked I think, number one in Asia at the minute so I'm super honoured to have been accepted to come here. And that's we moved out here in January 2018. So this is my fifth year in Singapore.

Lefteris Heretakis: 8:55

Teaching there compared to Kuwait.

Lisa Winstanley: 8:58

Wow, it's very, very different. I mean, Kuwait is so laid back, it's horizontal, you know, it's really sort of laid back and very relaxed atmosphere, whereas Singapore is, everything's in fast forward. Everything is needed yesterday. It's very fast paced. And so it was an incredibly challenging transition for me to go from Well, I kind of guess. I came from sort of like a very liberal society in the UK, then at least anyway, to a very ultra conservative society, in Kuwait. And then here in Singapore, I find it to be a very happy medium, between the two. There are some conservative views, but I think for the most part, and given amazing academic freedom here, which I very much enjoy. And I'm supported within the university to do a lot of collaborations which is something I'm very interested in To in pursuing and for the benefit of the students as well to get them engaged in sort of multidisciplinary work.

Lefteris Heretakis: 10:09

That's the so tell us about your current research projects, and your and your creative.

Lisa Winstanley: 10:16

Sure, I mean, I have absolutely tonnes going on at the minute, I always liken it to like I'm spinning all of the plates at the circus. Hopefully none of them come crashing down. But I am really lucky to have won quite a bit of funding some from the grant awards to support the research that I'm doing. I know do a lot of work in addressing visual plagiarism in art and design. Education specifically. And I look at this from a sort of moral and ethical perspective, rather than a legal perspective, I don't want to sort of go down the copyright and intellectual property, aspects of it. I'm not a lawyer, that's out of my scope of expertise. So I look at this from a very pre emptive approach. And the research that I've done, I've spoken to many, many undergraduate students, I've been speaking to faculty members, academic support staff librarians, to try and understand perspectives of how and why visual plagiarism occurs within a art and design, classroom setting, and how we can create tools and resources to support people to not visually play dress and to really understand academic integrity, read images. So to do that I've done like tonnes of focus groups analysing all that data to try and build tools to educate students. And so from all these conversations, and all this data that I've gathered, I've put together a toolkit called cut and paste, which is intended to be part of an active learning workshop. So I've designed a curriculum for this workshop, and a lot of print based resources to facilitate conversations within the workshop. So things like small sort of activities, if you will, to get students engaged with the topic and making, excuse me, on the topic to really deepen their understanding, rather than just, I think, in order to engage students on these type of things. If I were to just sort of stand at the front of the classroom, and be a talking head, and just deal with this in like a boring lecture, then the knowledge, they would me potentially remember it, but they won't be engaged with this. And so and they will probably won't realise the implications of it as well. So by getting the students to engage in these collaborative activity activities, I think it really helps them to grasp quite complex ethical and moral concepts. And so that was what the toolkit was designed to do. And aside from that, I also have just we're finishing up now project, whereby I spoke to trainee art and design teachers pre tertiary level. So I wanted to know, specifically in Singapore, how is visual plagiarism taught or taught, about spoken about within a pre tertiary classroom? How did art and design teachers acknowledge this and deal with this before they get to university? And through the research that I've done? The answer is that they don't. And it's just not part of the curriculum. And I wanted to end it wasn't because they didn't want to address it. It's just because it wasn't built into the curriculum structure. So it wasn't addressed.

Lefteris Heretakis: 14:27

So your IP and education really Yeah.

Lisa Winstanley: 14:31

I mean, it we look at things like like pastiche and homage and parody and how there's a lot of grey area here and how that a lot of university policy is very black and white. It's you cannot have more than 25% similarity. And my question is, how do I measure 25% of an image? Of course, so there needs to be institutional change not Just an educational reform. And it's opening students eyes to concepts like this and that it can't be just black and white. And anybody who's in the business of producing or consuming images should have more information about ethical production and consumption of images. So, that's one of the tools,

Lefteris Heretakis: 15:27

which is extended to AI, as well.

Lisa Winstanley: 15:30

This is where I'm hoping to go a little bit moving forward. So I've spoke to undergraduates, I spoke to trainee teachers, I'm now in the process of speaking to faculty as well and realising that faculty don't know enough about this topic either. But also in industry, I'm finding more and more, everybody's sending me emails, Lisa, look, these people have plagiarised this work. It's all over the internet. So I'm getting more and more people sending me this information about a going on in industry as well. And this is definitely where it sort of brooches into intellectual property and copyright issue. But again, I'm looking at this for more of a moral and ethical perspective, and how we can then go out into industry and speak to junior designers or even senior designers, art directors about the company practices, and to help them to avoid getting into any hot water through. And usually from, from what I found one of the main contributing factors to people, plagiarising work is naivety, they just don't know that you can't use these images or that there's legal repercussions to it. So I think this is why education is so important. So that we can start to make sure that everybody is aware of what what the can and can't is, and where there is a grey area, it's making sure that transparency is a key figure within that conversation.

Lefteris Heretakis: 17:16

Have you looked at things like mid journey? Yes, it's,

Lisa Winstanley: 17:20

it's I've seen so much that is sort of being pushed. Again, people keep sending me emails about

Lefteris Heretakis: 17:28

that's where it really is.

Lisa Winstanley: 17:30

Yes, yeah, I am constantly screenshotting things to add to this. And I think nobody, nobody's touching on this at the minute in the research world that I'm aware of, if anybody is please reach out to me, let's collaborate. But we need to start to consider how we deal with students using AI generated images, or producing AI generated images as part of submissions, and where the grey areas like in that sphere as well. It's a very interesting topic. And I think it's one that definitely needs to be explored, not just in education, but also in industry as well how people are utilising it in industry, because I think, moving forward from education, our students are going straight out there into the world. And practices are very different from from perhaps what they've been taught in university. So I think we need to really take a holistic approach to this to see how we can enlighten people, shall we say about the sort of rights and wrongs of this and I don't think there are black and white answers. I'm not even sure if there are any answers. But I would love to continue this research to try and find out a little bit more about other people's perspectives, and how we can potentially figure out solutions to navigate this brand new space.

Lefteris Heretakis: 19:03

You said you're collaborating with all sorts of institutions earlier on or

Lisa Winstanley: 19:09

not for this? Well, actually, for this particular research for the I've got loads of collaborations going on. For this visual plagiarism I working with our sister school almost it's called NIV, which is the Nanyang Institute for Education which trains teachers in Singapore. So I've been working with them to figure out ways that we can reach secondary school students how we can reach we have Junior College and polytechnic here before undergraduate education. So having a look at how we can reach those institutions, but also I am working with a number of different universities around the world And shout out to Mississippi University, who are also taking an interest in addressing visual plagiarism through online resources. So I've got a couple of conference presentations coming up with my partner in crime, Corrine Kennedy who is in Mississippi university, so she'll be working with me on that as well. But aside from my research into addressing visual plagiarism, in my sort of teaching role, I'll put my different hat on now. I work with lots of different partners. So I mentioned before that I teach an illustration for designers course. And within that course, I have created what I refer to as being my illustration plus framework. So again, I think it's super important for students to experience multidisciplinary, collaborations and multidisciplinary work. So within that illustration course, I have illustration Plus technology, where I introduce students to generating AR, face filters for for social media. And I think I spoke about that on the virtual keyboard design education, back in November, go check out that

Lefteris Heretakis: 21:28

we're starting as well as the DSM three. So it's all happening.

Lisa Winstanley: 21:31

Yes, big up to the deaf, that it was a great experience. So that sort of one collaboration where they're working more with a sort of global perspective in mind, not with a necessarily a partner. But then we move to illustration plus science. And I'm working with the School of Chemistry, here at NTU. And I think that's one of the amazing benefits of working with inside a technological university, that we do have access to scientists and engineers and computer scientists. And we've got all of these amazing people that we can tap into and work with. So I work with a wonderful professor called Makayla Shapiro, who is a molecular chemist. And our illustration, students go over to the chemistry labs, and they do loads of different experiments and get really, they get to wear the lab coat and put on the glasses. And we have a tour around the chemistry lab so that they can sort of understand what it means to be a scientist in 2023. And from there, they generate illustrations which are intended for academic publications. So we've been super successful. And we've had about, I would say, around eight of our students over the last two years have had their work published in academic journals, like on the front cover and stuff. So it's been really great. And we also promote this through, we have a physical exhibition, the School of Art, Design, and media. And last year, we also had a virtual exhibition as well through I forget the name of the platform, now. It's a German platform. So forgive me if I if I mispronounce this, but it's matrix. And you saw you can upload your artwork on there and virtually tour the gallery space, which I can share with you. And so that was a really great collaboration. And we're looking to extend that as well. So we can do some research into how we can really benefit from these types of collaborations and how the students can benefit from these collaborations. A lot of the underpinning research that I did before we sort of entered into this collab was really positioned art and design a somewhat subordinate to science as a way to elevate the science and this is great. But I want to approach this from more of a perspective, and it's how can science expand the worlds of our artists and designers? And how can it benefit the artist and the designer, I don't want to be positioned as being subordinate to science, I want to be on the same level and we both elevate each other. So that's super important. For me, at least anyway. And then the last part of this course is illustration plus sustainability. Now this is very new. I'm running this for the first time this semester, so it's Work in progress at the minute. But I think I'm working with a climate designer. This is her her her title as a climate designer. And we're aiming to generate illustrations that really look at imagined futures for our world, and the possibilities for our world. From a very positive perspective, I think there's lots of doom and gloom out there. Climate change, global warming is, is impacting so many people. But I really wanted our students to have a look at this from a much more positive perspective, and how if we change if we make the necessary changes in our lives, in our societies in our countries, what would our future look like? What would our world look like if we were to get it right, rather than the doom and gloom of what happens if we get it wrong?

Lefteris Heretakis: 25:59

What is the climate designer does like weather control?

Lisa Winstanley: 26:02

I don't know. I think she she, I'm hoping this is her correct title. But I think she she does a lot of work in informing people in advocacy and in promoting design for preventing climate change. Ah, okay. Yes. So, hopefully, I've got that right. Well, as I said, it's a brand new collaboration. So we are going to be working together. And hopefully, we have timed this right as well, in that we want to also do an exhibition of the work that's produced. And it just saw, so works out that it is on the 22nd of April, I think it is the forgotten the name of the thing. Now, it's like, Environment Day, what I forgot what they call it, oh, my goodness, I'll have to go back and find out. Oh, don't come back to me on that word. I'm sure it's on the tip of my tongue. I can't remember the name of it. But it's like a big event in the sort of sustainability world. And hopefully, we can use that to leverage upon and showcase our students work and make global citizens out of them.

Lefteris Heretakis: 27:27

Graphic.

Lisa Winstanley: 27:27

And then so that's my illustration course. So the next thing that I do that is very multidisciplinary, I teach a Design Thinking course. So I should say I co teach a Design Thinking course, because I work with another professor over at the School of material science, engineering, MSC. And so she teaches this course with me. And so we have half of the students are design Media students, and the other half a material science engineers. We mix them up so they have multidisciplinary groups. And then we collaborate with a community partner. So we've run this course for the last three years and had a different partner each round. The first round, we worked with a wonderful charity and NGO, sorry, here in Singapore called Edge empathy for the blind. And so we worked with the blind community and visually impaired community in Singapore, to come up with design solutions to really try to impact their day to day lives. So we had some amazing projects come out of that. Our students worked with blind chefs and designed a multifunctional chopping board that allowed the chef's to more safely prepare the foods and store their food as well. So that was a really great project. We had students work on sound systems for residential buildings and others worked on safety proofing, loads of different stuff happened in that. Then we the year after we worked with an organisation called heart where who support senior citizens in Singapore. And so our students worked one on one with seniors and designed solutions for for them specifically, it was a very sort of one to one challenge. And again, we had some great projects, whereby they stood student group created a whole business plan on safety proofing homes for the elderly, and hopefully they're still looking to do move that forward and actually create that into a legitimate business proposition. And then this year, we've just finished working with another NGO called ground up initiative, who are a sustainable organisation here in Singapore. And they have a number of different facilities on site. They have an earth oven, where they run pizza making workshops, they have a woodworking workshop where they recycle materials and create different furniture and smaller objects and teach people how to work with wood, recycled materials as well. And they also have a kitchen and a farm. So we had our students work with this organisation and, and got some great results in a create. It's a very rural space. And as you can imagine, in Singapore, it's quite tropical climate as well. So there's quite a lot of mosquitoes around. And so one of the problems that we identified or the students identified was that some of the volunteers that work there were actually really put off because they were getting eaten alive every time they weren't going out there to volunteer. And obviously, this has health implications that there's we have dengue fever here, which nobody wants to contract. So mosquito prevention was a real issue. But the students came up with a fantastic solution to that. And they created sort of portable mosquito repellent devices that use natural products. So through all the research that they did, they revealed that mosquitoes don't like oranges, or anything citrusy, so they dried out orange peel, crushed it up and created like a powder from it, which was then burned and sufficed as a really great mosquito repellent. The powder can also be dissolved in water and you can use it on yourself as a repellent as well. All natural. So no pollutants involved whatsoever. No chemicals involved whatsoever, or natural chemicals involved.

Lefteris Heretakis: 32:29

Burns, dried, the dried orange peel.

Lisa Winstanley: 32:32

Yes, which actually comes from the kitchen, in ground up initiative as well. So it's a really circular solution. That would that's utilising things that would just be thrown away. And so then the grander Punisher, ative the actual organisation have taken this on and created a workshop so people can come and learn how to build these devices. And take them home for their own spaces. And they've built lots around the environment that they're in as well. So hopefully, is alleviated some of those pesky mosquitoes Yes, so that's, that's my teaching collaborations. And I'm always open to to explore other ways that we can collaborate with other schools and other organisations, I never say no to an opportunity to work with interdisciplinary and, and to try and put back into the communities that we serve as well. I think it's really important as an expat here in Singapore that I try and integrate into the community and give back. Hopefully I do that with my teaching, but a little bit more in terms of having some empathy and really figuring out how I can make a difference. That's super important to me. And I think I've transitioned very far from like my packaging days in the UK. And for me, so as a person, I think it was very important that my legacy be more than just landfill. So for me giving back is something that as an educator, I'm in a very fortunate position to be able to try and do

Lefteris Heretakis: 34:30

what's brilliant. Where do you see the future of employability for designers?

Lisa Winstanley: 34:35

Oh, wow. That's a great question. I think because I'm in all of these multidisciplinary spaces. It seems to me that that's where design is moving towards. I don't think that we can situate ourselves in the silos anymore. For me, like I said, I'm trained in in graphic design and visual communication. And that's great. Or would I be able to earn an income in 1020 years time, if I could only do that one thing. And I think being able to collaborate in environments which are not necessarily you're not necessarily comfortable is a wonderful place to try and explore to get out of your comfort zone is where I would like to see our students headed and not being afraid to do so. So I think there are more and more spaces opening up outside of what we deemed the sort of traditional design industry. Social media has kind of opened that up so that we've got people working in government spaces, in educational spaces, in tourism in whatever other industries are in need of design and designers. And I think a lot of our students seem to be moving over into industries that are not specifically design focused. And being comfortable in those spaces is one of the challenges that we face as educators to help students to thrive in an environment that they're not familiar with. I think adaptability is probably one of the key things we should aim to try and impart on our students and for them to be as adaptable as possible so that they can move. I mean, none of us know where the design industry is going, is it it's in such a state of flux? So be prepared for the unknown.

Lefteris Heretakis: 36:57

So if you had to could have a magic wand and change whatever you like in your education, what would you do differently in your teaching?

Lisa Winstanley: 37:06

Oh, man, that's that's a big question. I mean, I'd love to be able to remove the red tape and the administration. But I think, I mean, I touched briefly upon this before with my work with visual plagiarism, I think, universal, it'd be so wonderful to have more conversations with the powers that be in in design education, so that they're more familiar with what we do as artists and designers, and creatives. And so that we can have these conversations that don't exclude us, or that end up making us be square pegs in round holes. I think it would be if I had this magic wand, I would get all engineers and scientists and anyone who works in tech and business majors to come do some design classes, so that they can really understand that. I think there's this misconception sometimes in certain fields, especially where I am that we all sort of float around in bohemian robes waving paint brushes. And that's what we do in the art school, you know, and I think it'd be really great to open people's minds up a little bit more to understand that we are. Yes, all right, we may float around with the Bohemian robes, waving papers, but that's not all we do. We are problem, excavators. We're problem solvers. We're idea factories, we're all of these things. And that were very complimentary to many of the disciplines that they work in. And we're not these alien beings that do weird stuff. Well, not all the time, at least anyway. This is great. Yes. So more awareness is my magic wish. Yeah.

Lefteris Heretakis: 39:07

Yeah. How can our viewers and listeners find you?

Lisa Winstanley: 39:11

Oh, okay. So my website is Lisa winstanley.com. You can find me there. I'm also on ResearchGate. For my more academic things. I'm also on LinkedIn as well. You can just type in Lisa Winstanley on socials. I'm probably more active on Instagram, on Lisa W design. I do have a Twitter account, but I don't use it as much as I would like mainly because I'm too busy spinning all the other plates. But I think that's probably the W on Twitter. And yes, come and find me. Come follow me. Come chat with me. Come collaborate with me.

Lefteris Heretakis: 39:54

Brilliant. Brilliant. What is the advice would you'd like to leave us with

Lisa Winstanley: 39:59

Oh, So if I'm speaking to students, I think I would say, be open to working with others learning from multimodal ways of doing and being and thinking. Don't be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone. Don't be afraid of failure. Failure is part of the process, embrace that process, learn from that, roll with that. And, and lastly, I think, give back if you can, to the societies that we're we're living in, even if you can make an impact just on one person, then I think that's, that's more than enough. And I highly encourage you to try

Lefteris Heretakis: 40:45

this fantastic thing. Thank you so much for this fantastic conversation. And again, looking forward to collaborating with you on the Education Forum that's coming up and have a hopefully,

Lisa Winstanley: 40:57

oh, good, fingers crossed. I will hope so too. I'm looking forward also. Thanks so much, Lefteris. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.