Ari Chand: The Future of Design Education: Challenges, AI, and the Role of Practice

Dr Ari Chand, Lecturer in Illustration and Animation, UniSA Creative, University of South Australia.

Ari is a Designer/Illustrator and practice-based design researcher, Lecturer in Illustration and Animation at UniSA Creative at the University of South Australia, Australia, and soon to be Adelaide University launching in 2026. He teaches into the only combined Illustration and Animation Degree in Australia. Primarily teaching Illustration and Animation theory and practice, with a focus on how visual communication and illustration can help transform and communicate across biodiversity and science, education, histories and heritage, social work and health. His illustration work is mainly comprised of traditional and digital drawing, watercolour, ink, acrylic or hybridised digital illustration. Ari is on the Board for the International Illustration Research Network and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Illustration, a national committee member and Educational Liaison for Illustrators Australia, and Member of the Creative People, Products and Places Research Centre (CP3).

Degree: https://adelaideuni.edu.au/study/degrees/bachelor-of-illustration-and-animation/int/

Google: https://g.co/kgs/12u15h2

University Profile: https://people.unisa.edu.au/Ari.Chand

Linktree:https://linktr.ee/arichand

WEB: www.arichand.com

Twitter: @byarichand

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arichand

Scholar: https://scholar.goog

Transcript

0:10

Hello and welcome to Design Education Talks by the New Art School. Our guest today is Ari Chand. Welcome Ari. Thanks, Left Harris. It's good to see you again. It's great to see you here, it's fantastic. So tell us about you and your work. Well, yeah, thanks for having me on Left Harris. I appreciate it. I'm a lecturer in illustration animation at the University of South Australia, Adelaide University, which is something I'll probably talk about a little bit. But yeah, I guess a lot of the work that I do is in the illustration space and the illustration research space. I have a number of PhD candidates and honors candidates and teach in illustration animation studio here at South Australia, which is Australia's only degree that combines illustration animation together, which is quite unique about it and yeah, quite exciting as well. Still quite studio focused teaching, which I know. You're a big fan of and a lot of drawings still involved in our program and our teaching which is quite exciting. Yeah, I've got a number of projects that I'm doing at the moment as well. So I'm working on a short film with another colleague, Dr. James Calvert, which is like integrating AI and kind of making fun of it at the same time. And yeah, hopefully I'm working on, well, working on book chapters and journal articles and all the academic things that we are all doing at the same time as incorporating it into our teaching. I suppose it's such a, yeah, a balance and a juggle, as you know. almost anywhere else in the world, which at the moment, yeah. So, yeah. So tell us about your path. How did you get into teaching? Um, it's a good question. I was one of sort of been thinking about most of the day, to be honest, as, uh, um, we're getting ready for teaching as well. Um, in, in Australia, which works on a slightly different, um, sort of teaching cycle to a lot of the Northern hemisphere. Um, I've always sort of been involved in teaching somehow, and I really think there's a strong connection between learning and teaching. And I, you know, like how I've learned is often been something that I've wanted to sort of share. I actually did an undergraduate degree in teaching as well as a part of my journey. So it was sort of trained in teaching practices, which has actually come in quite useful as I sort of started working in the higher education sector. But I've always been involved in art and design. And... I think there's such a culture of design and I guess I've watched a lot of great design teachers and that really inspired me to enter into teaching. When I first started my PhD was the main opportunity to start teaching into a class at the time, a theory class. I was taught into both theory classes and studio classes for the last 10 years now. at two different universities. So it's really interesting to see the different combination of how those sorts of things work in terms of design education, how theory comes into practice. I'm a self-confessed nerd and so I kind of like pouring over the history of design just as much as the practices of design. I think I've always liked that combination that I've sort of had and try to bring that into my teaching. Ultimately, as I started doing doctoral studies, when I got opportunities to start teaching and showcasing some of the skills that I'd learned from doing different freelance work and all sorts of things. I think what's always great about teaching is that it's a two-way street. You're learning from students, and I still do as well now in the studios and theory, all the types of conversations that we're having now. around AI, et cetera, and the future of design is just as exciting to me as now, as it was probably about 10 years ago, talking about some of the different changes that were happening in Photoshop and InDesign and UX and service design entering the design education sphere at the time. Things have actually changed a lot in 10 years. So I think in terms of my entry to teaching, it was really at the start of my sort of doctoral PhD study where... I was very fortunate to have a supervisor kind of say, hey, do you want to be involved in one of the courses that I'm teaching? So that was kind of my entry point, I suppose, into it. But yeah, it's been, I've taught lots of different things since, as you probably have yourself. Absolutely. So what do you feel has changed in the past 10 years, let's say? Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about it too, because... of a lot of the conversations that have been happening recently around not just in design education but sort of philosophically, more broadly in societies, lots of different sort of as they say, you know, wicked problems that are starting to arise within the broader global geographic, you know, locations of different parts of even Australia, things that are pressure points now. were things that we would often discuss in sort of design scenarios and ethical scenarios quite a while ago. Like, you know, it wouldn't be uncommon for me to be having a conversation with design students about, you know, AI and love and, you know, the future of swiping and how that could be a design problem. And that was, you know, nearly 10 years ago, which was when Tinder first came into the zeitgeist I suppose and we look now 10 years on and there's completely different sort of social problems that are Evolving in society, but those were sort of design things that we were thinking about You know as you know design is kind of integrated in most the way that we experience the world, you know It's constantly transforming our experience But I think the way that it's changed in terms of the way that we talk about it now I think is less almost less speculative and sort of more problem orientated, which is surprising to me because there's been a long history of trying to not focus on specific problems and think more structurally about things when we're even when we're teaching students. But I think now we've got all these, it's almost quite overwhelming for students to talk about all the problems that are there to fixate on in terms of a classroom. I think that's something that I've really noticed happening is that What once could be maybe a design problem we isolate in a scenario and talk about with students is maybe just way too interconnected into all the other problems of the world. I guess that's something that I've really noticed is the sort of shift in how many problems there are and how, you know, especially eco-anxiety and the future of sustainability, you know, the way that societal pressures, the cost of living, all of these sorts of things. are things that play into things like political illustration, for example, things we teach in the classroom, editorial and political illustration, that social commentary that goes on about all the different experiences that people are having around the world or war, et cetera, is still as a visual practice, which we teach, is something that they're reflecting on, they're maybe quite overwhelmed by at times. So yeah, those sorts of things are... of the things that I've noticed in the classroom, I suppose, is, you know, it's, there's a lot, there's a lot going on in the world at the moment. Absolutely. Yeah. What do you feel the challenges are for students right now? They seem to be having quite a few. Yeah, I think, well, as you, as I sort of have just mentioned, like the economic pressures are a big one. And I think what's really fascinating is another thing that has changed. probably even in the 10 years that I've been teaching is the focus on like equity and inclusion, right? So the idea that education is a transformative power for how students can be enlightened, especially design education, it can change people's lives. Design education is a really powerful tool for people being able to enter all sorts of careers, yes, but as a way of thinking about the world and experiencing it. And I think, ultimately, Those sorts of pressures are the things that maybe universities are starting to try and address but there are a lot more alternate pathways into university these days, especially in Australia like open access pathways, things that you don't necessarily have to have done well in the end of school career to be able to enter into university, which is amazing. But I think there's still a lot of cost of living pressures. Like our students are often working one or two other jobs in order to... sustain their time and split their brain in studies. And I don't think that's uncommon elsewhere as well. I think, you know, people are really trying to manage lots of different hats as they're learning and engaging with, yeah, tertiary or higher education study. I think that's one of the biggest challenges we're facing because students are doing two things badly. They're neither working nor studying anyway, in that mode. Because there's this pathway to work. So you can advance through working somewhere, start from, or through study. But if you're not neither working nor studying, then you're not focusing the attention very much. That's a huge challenge, I find. Yeah, and I mean, the other thing too, that's probably worth mentioning, that is that obviously university is not the only way to study as well. I mean, there's so many different options nowadays to learn lots of different skills. And I think there's a real disruption in the. in the sort of learning and teaching experience, you know, there's a lot more options to learn skills. It's not just university that's going to maybe teach you those skills and it's not just the idea of a person standing in front of a room anymore. It's much more organic and it's much more a dialogue with students in the studio environment and it's always about what they bring to the table just as much as what you can offer them in that process. But I agree, there's a lot more splitting the brain in terms of... Do they have the bandwidth to actually look at the issue properly and even just the time in studios that you might get or the time that they can actually put in between each week to get that iterative feedback that works really well in the studio environment? If they keep coming the next week and they haven't done the thing that they're supposed to have done because they are loaded up with all of these life things, it's a really You know, it's quite a pressure cooker in some cases. Yeah. I've seen sort of, yeah, students really sort of struggling with that, I guess a bit more recently, you know. Um, yeah. Absolutely. So what do you think we can do as educators or universities to help them more? Like how can we do design education differently so we can give more to the students? Yeah, it's actually something that's, I guess, like I sort of mentioned earlier, part of a big university merger at the moment. That's the University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide. They're both quite different institutions, but the first time sort of globally. with them merging two universities together and bringing together two learning systems, two online learning platforms, all of these different approaches to teaching. And what actually has been really quite interesting in the sort of way that they're approaching the future of education, I suppose, is the way that the online learning platforms complement the in-studio experience. So It's not just about perhaps doing a Coursera course or a LinkedIn learning course where you're passively learning information by watching videos and looking at things. It really is about how does that material online support the purpose of being in the room? You know, it's, it's not just this synchronous learning, it's asynchronous learning, how do those all sit together and come in a combination? I think that is something that I think probably hasn't. more globally been a big focus in terms of how we can do that better so that students are getting just the right amount online that also supports just the right amount in the classroom. I think that's a really big focus for the future, which has been quite exciting to be a part of and see a process for that perhaps and the way that universities are responding to these pressures. things being a little bit more flexible for students so that they can work and organize themselves around that rather than just pure online learning. Because as you know, for physical disciplines and design disciplines, it's not, you wanna have some of those in-person experiences. I think the question is just which ones are the most important now to have in the classroom and get feedback from someone? Or, can they, how do we split our time, I guess as educators? as well because that's also becoming, you know, how much time do you have to teach? Which is, you know, how much time do you have to give feedback? And I think even post COVID, we learned a lot teaching online and, you know, how exhausting that can be giving lots and lots of online feedback versus where could you maybe have pockets of it and then pockets in the classroom, peer to peer feedback, all sorts of different things. I think there's just so many strategies available now. And I think universities really, all sorts of learning environments really, I think, can start to build that combination. We can give more feedback if we can simplify the feedback to how things used to be. I mean, it's like if you have written feedback, it takes 10 times more time than giving an oral feedback. I remember when I was at Kingston, Brian Love used to give me feedback and I would frantically start writing things down. It was my responsibility. Yeah. Whereas where we give this, this written feedback, it takes 10 times. So we could be actually giving a lot more feedback. It's actually, we're stuck somewhere writing it. Yeah. That's something that we actually implement in our studios, which involves a lot of team teaching, but students do a con what we call a consultation record, which is that they actually have to write a summary of, of what we've. boken about together as almost a social contract, I guess, between the educator and the student as to like, what have we actually discussed so that we're both holding each other accountable? I think we have to have less of this infantilization issue. There's more responsibility. And that could work a lot. But what else would you propose? Yeah, it has worked. Absolutely. In terms of other ideas, I'm just going to start with some different ideas. What else would you propose that we could do? I actually also think, I mean, obviously real world projects are always important and as much as you can, trying to expose students to real world clients that can offer that ability, you know, doing an actual job and actually having a conversation and so that it's not always this idea of the lecture. tutor or the studio educator being the person telling them the feedback, the more that you can broaden out that feedback, which we've also done with a number of, especially in our third year studios and that sort of thing. That's always really important. And I think that's something that, especially here at my institution, is quite a strong thing. There's lots of different relationships with bodies in Adelaide itself. So different organizations and other sort of external clients that link in with an industry focus. And you know, as much industry talks that you can get and so that there is a variety. I mean, these are not new things. These are not new ideas. These are things that design education has been doing for quite some time. But one of the things that I was going to suggest though, is that I've listened to a couple of the other speakers. really miss the notion of material practice as a way of talking through things. And one of the things that I'm quite passionate about, as you probably can see behind me, is the notion of students creating their own collections and the diarizing their own experiences so that they're actually broadening out what they're drawing information from. You know, it's auto-ethnography. It's the idea of being out in the world and utilizing your own experience within your practice, right? So... I really, we try really try and encourage students to make sure that they're drawing ideas from as much of their life as possible, not just Pinterest, you know, like not just going straight to Pinterest and the Pinterest problem where, you know, all the ideas come from Google. It's kind of like, you know, if I, if I'm really looking at the world through a design collectors lens, how can I pick up all of these tiny little tip bits that I can merge together into an idea? and then have something that is really conceptually strong and powerful perhaps in the way that they communicate. And not just for visual disciplines, like this goes for all sorts of things where you get an idea. So I think that's another thing, again, it's not a new idea. I just think that somewhere along the line, the digitization of everything can ask sort of... The idea that we're constantly a cyborg connected into these things is disrupting the way that we have an embodied experience. We actually look at the world and we're looking around ourselves and we make that a part of.. We incorporate that into our design practice. I think beginning that from early levels all the way through, it's not a new idea. It's just something that I really think... is something to come back to in strengthening things, I guess, especially with AI and the disruption that's causing the disembodied sort of nature of it. Absolutely. So where do you see this going in the future? What challenges do you think that we could be facing? Well, I guess the ultimate challenge at the moment is for young designers, academics, design teachers are all going through this process at the moment of re-evaluating practice and thinking about learning and teaching. And I think that's what's quite interesting, sort of scary sometimes, and also a little bit exciting in the sense that there are lots of things that we could... we can integrate from AI. And I know that there's a lot of people that are quite resistant to that because of the authenticity of practice and ethics and where is all of this stuff coming from. But I think there are lots of things about it that can help create efficiencies and especially, there's lots of areas or issues around sustainability and how much power it's taking to generate all these things and. Also the democratization of design. As you probably know, Canva, which is obviously a global product, design educators kind of think all sorts of different things about it, but it came out of Melbourne in Australia and has helped and assisted to democratize the use of at least visual design and lots of visual practices globally. And it's always really interesting to talk to students about the fact that it was developed here. And also recently, Procreate, another Australian company, which has also taken the world by storm, has staunchly gone against AI in terms of that conversation. But I think there's just so much talk about AI at the moment that seems to be the thing that's disrupting everything for us. The way that we teach is changing, is changing underneath our feet. I'm not quite sure. And I'm trying to engage with AI in order to understand that process. And I think at this stage for design educators, you actually do have to get your hands dirty in AI a little bit just to understand what's not. Absolutely. Just as much as what is good, I suppose. And I think that is the big thing facing students. But the idea of careers and futures has always been a problem for designers. And it's always an individual experience as well. There's a huge plagiarism issue just like in AI for writing, also AI for images. You know, there's a huge plagiarism issue. So, and that hasn't been resolved and it doesn't look like it's being resolved. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. And I don't have any answers either for that. And I know there's lots of different approaches that different countries are trying to take in terms of the copyright issue and, you know, how that's being used. I mean, I was just thinking about this today. I've been using a platform called CREA.ai, which is actually more like an interface that uses lots of different AI models. So underneath it, it's, it's using, you know, diffusion models and, um, adversarial network models and then transform models. It uses all of them as a part of it. And you can actually sort of select what you're using. But, um, I was just talking with a colleague about this, you know, it's so difficult to work out where any of the data sets are that they're the drawing from, you know, you know, all of these, you know, just recently Jessica Walsh, you know, the designer has just come out with a paid promotion with Adobe about some Firefly, which is quite interesting in terms of, you know, quite a well known sort of brackets pedestal brackets designer, who's, who's often been in the conversation of design education as is sort of coming out endorsing the use of AI. And I wonder whether that is because it's drawing from licensed stock imagery, you know. And it's not just licensed stock image. It's also people who are using Adobe CC. You know, they came out. It's like, oh, we own your work. It's like, people are leaving Adobe in droves. I've just opened the can of worms, left Harrison. This is the can of worms subject, that's for sure, for design education. But nonetheless, it's a real issue facing not only the industry, but the way we teach. It's a really big disruptor, I think. I'm sure many of the people on your podcast have been talking about it or trying to wrap their heads around it. They're very viable. Brilliant. So how can our viewers and listeners find you? How can they find me? Um, yes, online, I think in your show notes, but, um, yeah, they can find me on LinkedIn and, um, all over the place. So I've got a website and the university profile and, um, yeah, I mean, I'm very happy for people to reach out and talk to me about design education. I think it's an exciting time and, you know, kind of scary. And there's just so much shifting, I suppose. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So what advice would you like to leave us with? What advice? Stay positive, left Terrace. I think we've all got to stay positive about the future. And I think it's quite easy at the moment to feel the negativity globally, I suppose, about all sorts of things. But. I think lots of professional networks in design nationally here are all stressed about the same issues as higher education or teaching might have. So I think it is actually about individualizing it and bring it back to being positive about what you can do in design. I still try and take that attitude into the classroom. The individual... that's sitting in front of me having a conversation about their work is the transformation that education can bring ultimately. And that's the relationship that you have as a design educator. So I think like being, you know, quite positive about the future is, is really important now to still inspire a new generation of designers, even though there is a lot of disruption out there at the moment. So that would be my main piece of advice to leave people with. I really enjoyed the conversation. Keep in touch with the podcast and take care. Take care. All the best.