Silk is a prestigious material, often used to produce textiles and clothing associated with rank, luxury, wealth and social status. In Africa silk is produced and used less extensively than cotton and wool – both geographically and socially. However, silk textile traditions in Africa have been sustained by the continuing demand for prestigious culturally significant clothes.

Kalahari tussah silk comes from a silk worm from the Kalahari, a vast region of red sandy soil extending across much of Southern Africa. The wild silk is a naturally occurring renewable resource used by the San, who are the original and oldest inhabitants of South- Africa. Small communities are located in a few areas like the Kalahari Desert region, and regions of Namibia (Lewis- Williams, 1991:6-11).

Design thinking, a well known topic of discussion in the design discourse, offers exciting innovative possibilities when applied in other disciplines. This paper explores the potential of design thinking in the seemingly disparate discipline of Operations Research/Management Science (OR/MS). OR/MS develops mathematical models for analysis based on quantitative logic as an answer to management or other real life problems. Design shares this concern with trying to improve current situations but approaches these problems differently, using ‘designerly ways of thinking’.

The Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at the University of Johannesburg has diverse departments ranging from Architecture, Fine Arts and Multimedia to five different design disciplines. After years of being housed in geographically dispersed locations the faculty has recently moved into one building, and is in the process of consolidating and rationalizing the teaching programmes. One area of rationalization has been identified as the theory programme, and we have been assigned the task of identifying theoretical material and drawing up a single teaching programme that most departments could subscribe to.

This paper acknowledges the ongoing process being used in the Jewellery sector to develop an integrated training and development framework. The framework progresses from ABET Level 1 to doctoral qualifications and shows how the various qualifications could link directly to specific occupations within a sector. In doing so, this paper addresses the boundaries between education, training, industry and government. More importantly, it indicates the inclusive process followed to open the gates to enter the new terrain of relevant education and training for sector specific occupations.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the South African jewellery sector is aligning education and training within the government’s educational policy.

The practice and the teaching of Typography in South Africa has yet to undergo radical or substantive changes in light of the multiple shifts and developments in critical thinking that has taken place in Academia and contemporary visual practice in recent years. While contemporaneous thinking has “ forced a change “ in many disciplines in light of the Postmodern, Post Colonial and other “Post” posturing that challenge the dominance of Europe and the West as the centre, very little of the core imperatives of these schools of thought has found its way into the development and thinking around Typography in South Africa save a few seminal books and teachers.

The paper reflects on how DEFSA has delivered on the Forum’s first aim, with specific focus on the liaison activities that takes place at a tertiary level. This aim, as documented in the DEFSA Constitution, reads “Ensuring that liaison is maintained between relevant primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education in matters pertaining to design education, between technikons, universities, technical colleges, private institutions, education authorities and the design industry” (DEFSA, 2007a).

This paper questions how we teach and practise within our various specialities without a holistic understanding of the self and our humanity.

South African education systems straddle the developed/developing world schism, an old-school-style Eurocentric view has long tussled with an Africanist dialectic. Educators struggle with access and upliftment issues whilst implementing outcomes-based learning programmes and simultaneously maintaining academic standards. At Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), conscious of the need to build future capacity, innovation in teaching and learning is paramount and the issues identified above are constantly under debate. Experimentation is an ongoing aspect of teaching methodology.

Graphic designers and illustrators intuitively believe that their graphic embellishments such as pictures, photographs and graphics will aid a learner when they use instructional material. The results of empirical studies however indicate that graphic embellishments have a limited effect and only contribute to learning under very specific conditions.