Design With Play: The thinking behind Falmouth University's new pedagogy

When you enter the creative industry as a new graduate, there will always be a part of you that feels like a fish out of water. Recently, though, universities across the UK have been trying to curate courses more reflective of how agencies and businesses work by promoting collaboration, bringing in external briefs, and even encouraging a healthy amount of criticism and failure.

Down on the south west coast, Falmouth University is putting huge efforts into making sure its students are as ready as they can be to succeed in the creative industries, particularly through its new module, 'Design With'. Because of its geography, the university has worked really hard to build connections over the last 40 years—connections that they'll be calling on to help make this new module work in the years to come.

This year, a collaboration with Birmingham Design Festival (BDF) kicked off the new learning format, facilitated by BDF co-founder Luke Tonge, graphic design course leader Andy Neal, and senior lecturer Ashley Rudolph.

Tonge, who is also a Falmouth Alum, says: "At BDF, we believe world-class design talks (and workshops) should be accessible to everyone – we've been doing this for years with our Festival and other events in Brum - so when the opportunity came to bring some of our BDF spirit and speakers to students in a University setting, and one as beautiful as Falmouth, it was a no-brainer.

"Being a 'Falumni' myself from almost two decades ago means I have a deep history with, and affection for the place – and many of the staff – which made the endeavour a very personal one too. I don't need to be asked twice if I want to head to the seaside!"

Although collaborative practice modules have run before as part of the course, 'Design With' marks the first time that different year groups have worked together with a partner organisation and external briefs involved. The new six-week module is defined by a series of talks with industry creatives (aka a symposium) followed by workshops with them, which then leads into the brief and, finally, the results, reflection, and feedback.

The theme for 'Design With' this year is Play—the same as the upcoming Birmingham Design Festival—and Tonge rounded up four fantastic creatives to get involved. Artist and designer Morag Myerscough, Google creative coder Lex Fefegha, Monotype typography designer Marie Boulanger, and collage artist Jimmy Turrell were all down in Falmouth for the first few days of the module, which included talks, workshops, and a brief setting.

"We know students find contact with industry valuable, especially those with amazing practices and bodies of work they aspire to," Tonge explains. "Bringing them into the education environment helps break down perceived barriers and allows students to interact with speakers in a safe space, flipping the power dynamic."

So, to see firsthand what the new Design With module is all about, we headed down to Falmouth to find out how the university is setting higher standards for design education.

A sense of togetherness

When Rudolph and Neal revalidated the course two years ago, they spent quite a lot of time connecting with key people within the industry. From this, they found that you can't predict what jobs will be out there in the same way that you used to. New, more fluid job roles are constantly cropping up as people's needs and the planet adapt and evolve.

What was clear is that students need to have that slightly more critical approach, ask more questions, be willing to be adaptable, and get comfortable with the idea of play and failure.

About a decade before the revalidation, Falmouth University's Graphic Design course had a second-year module called Collaborative Practice, which both Rudolph and Neal Ashley have been quite involved in. According to Neal, it's the one module where staff have a bit more freedom because, although there's still a curriculum to focus on, they're also allowed to integrate more of their own work, which is more fulfilling and rewarding for the students.

"For the newly validated course, we've basically built that second-year module into each of the three years in the form of 'Design With'," he says. Rudolph notes the fact that the briefs are coming from external people in the industry rather than the staff at the university, which sets a new challenge for and gets students into a new mindset, even if the briefs are similar to what a tutor would set.

Neal calls it "the 'crazy uncle' analogy", where your parents tell you to do something and you don't, but then your crazy uncle suggests it, and you think it's really cool (we've all been there).

From Myerscough's point of view, "If you're exposed to what is possible, then you realise that that could be you in the future". She remembers visiting exhibitions when she was young and thinking, "I will never be that person" because it felt so distant.

Turrell also feels that bridging the gap between students and industry makes their future careers seem more attainable, something he experienced himself while at university. He says, "I remember being at uni and David Carson came in to speak with us, and I thought it was great and was really inspired.

"We also did a studio visit with Vaughan Oliver, and just seeing where he was working was really inspiring, especially because he was from Sunderland up near Newcastle, and I realised he was just a normal guy, and we went for a pint afterwards."

Fefegha, who's been involved in academia since 2018, had a similar experience when someone came to his university to speak about his work and his research in design fiction, which changed everything for him. "I hope that the very thing I'm doing here will also contribute to someone else's practice," he adds.

Neal reinforces the need for "a more critical, objective, adaptable way of thinking". With this new module, students are navigating the complexities of collaborating across year groups with people they don't know and working on projects they didn't choose.

"We work together, we learn together, we study together, we play together, so there's a sense of togetherness," says Neal. "I can't claim that Graphics at Falmouth is the only place to do that, but I think it's definitely becoming something we're known for."

In 'Design With', the output is obviously important, but the journey to it is even more so. Students create a journal or diary to record the process and their thinking as a group, followed by an individual critical report. With the latter, they can tell their version of events and interrogate what they've learned through the experience.

Why we should all play (in our work and beyond)

Neal believes that part of the university's role is to question the industry and not assume that things are done in the best way. He says, "We want all of our students to be asking more questions of their own practice, so I suppose the themes of play just fell into our laps as a central component.

"If you feel like your work has lost its spark and is just ticking all the commercial boxes, play is the one thing you always have to go back to, where there's no pressure from industry or jobs, and it's just about the joy of coming up with ideas."

Looking back on her previous BDF talk, Boulanger realised that it was actually all about rules and how they create a space for her to play. "That tension in my work is always present—that rigidity of type design and the playfulness of my taste," she says.

On the other hand, Turrell doesn't have many rules in his practice, but he thinks that creatives should always find time to play outside of their jobs. He advises young creatives to "have a sketchbook all the time and experiment - always be creating and always be inquisitive".

Through the theme of play, the university also wanted to teach students to be willing to fail, which fundamentally goes against everything they're taught in their 18 years of education. "Life is not a linear path, and we shouldn't be showing a perfect depiction of life that isn't a true reality, so I hope that they saw that honesty and can take that away with them," says Fefegha.

He adds: "I think it's interesting because of social media and the fact that we always share the perfect version of ourselves online and share the big impressive projects, but I like to be real, and so did the rest of the speakers.

"Even for me, listening to Morag, Jimmy and Marie speak, I'm learning, and it's adding things to my practice."

All of the speakers were truly open and honest in their talks, discussing the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of their careers. Turrell says, "People have to learn from their mistakes, and failure is a very important part of the creative process."

So, what does a design education really have to offer? Neal says it's "a rewiring of other principles that are fundamental to the human experience, that are essentially being lost because there's an entire education system that is removing them, even though we need them."

A change in perspective

What was clear from the two days in Falmouth was that all of the speakers were very accessible people from very different disciplines who all had a passion for helping the next generation of creatives.

Myerscough says: "I think it's healthy for working people to break things up a little bit and introduce new things to young people."

According to Boulanger, another benefit of going to Falmouth is getting out of your comfort bubble. She explains, "I think that it is very important to change environments and give new stimuli to your brain because you get very different results depending on where you do things and how you feel about things.

"Coming to a place like this is an opportunity to reset your brain, think of new angles, and leave your own bubble. I live in London and work on Shoreditch High Street for one of the biggest type companies in the world, so I am in that bubble day in and day out."

From the university's perspective, Neal says, "Whether it's through inviting people down or the way we set up projects, we're trying to establish this central principle of play, iteration, and failure as a practice."

In short, collaboration has always been core to Falmouth University's offering, but they're constantly trying to improve student's experiences and improve their chances of being successful early on in their careers. The new Design With module is the most progressive iteration yet, with students collaborating across year groups and with industry across a whole module, but it might look different in five, ten, or twenty years since they're always revalidating and reflecting on what's best for the course and students.

Rudolph gives a final thought on the collaboration: "Luke's been extremely generous with his time and support, and we've been really lucky. We're mutually benefiting from the relationship in many different ways, but, first of all, it's a friendship, which is why it works so well and feels authentic."