Over the last two decades we have seen the designer‘s role and brief broaden. Through the introduction of the personal computer, the Internet and wireless technology and social networking, we all have experienced dramatic changes, especially in our rapport with space, time, the physicality of objects, and ourselves as individuals. Today, with the expansion in student numbers and a reducing resource in Higher Education how the studio-based design pedagogic community responds and adapts its teaching and learning methodologies in response to these rapid developments and effectively utilises feedback opportunities to inform curriculum is key in ensuring that students understand and are equipped for the profession they are entering.

The diverse tautology applied to graphic design means different things depending on the perspective from which it is viewed and has become the topic for much debate in recent times. This is of particular relevance to the tertiary educational arena in South Africa, where universities (including Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) which provides the context for this paper) are faced with the dual spectres of programme re-curriculation and Higher Education Qualifications Framework (HEQF)1 level compliancy in the near future and graphic design programmes will have to reconsider their relevance in a changing/changed educational and business paradigm.

Although based in various design disciplines the concept of user centred design (UCD) and "design with intent" has been linked to the notion of "human-centred principles", "design for behavioural change", "persuasion technologies" and "interaction design" at international design institutions for some time.

Understanding how user behaviour can influence technological solutions is critical for designers wishing to effectively tackle social issues such as eco-solutions, effective wayfinding design as well as the design of information brochures/pamphlets. Designers influence behaviour from a distance through the creative products and services that are produced based on their understanding of user behaviour.

Cultural Action for Change began in 2000 as a joining of artists, educators, and student-researchers to assess sustainability and address the impact of HIV within Phumani Paper; a government-funded poverty alleviation program, establishing hand papermaking and craft enterprises across South Africa. Inspired by ideals of empowerment and self-determination, a series of qualitative, Participatory Action Research (PAR) interventions for HIV awareness and action were introduced at six Phumani papermaking workshop sites. Student researchers and participants, with the collaboration of academics from the University of Michigan, were trained in Photovoice methodology to document with photographs and personal narrative the participants‘ struggles for economic independence.

The concept of fashion has attracted a great deal of interest from a variety of academic disciplines such as history, culture, anthropology, sociology, psychology and semiotics to name a few. This has often resulted in tension between different approaches. At a conference held in England in 2009 concerning the future of fashion studies, a number of fashion scholars such Rebecca Arnold, Christopher Breward, Professor Stella Bruzzi and many others, deliberated on the methodologies and research agendas that have emerged in the growing research area of fashion studies.

South African Universities demand of their lecturers, amongst other things, a burgeoning research track record. Such research is inevitably subject to the requirements of research and included in these requirements is that the research is carried out within the bounds of acceptable research ethical practice. Therefore, any research that emanates from Design programmes has to meet the mandate of such research ethical practice.

This paper presents an analytical autoethnographic reflection on the adaptations in approach to the teaching and learning of literacies that led to the writing and research-intensive literacies programme currently presented to first year visual arts students. It maps our practices to theory, and specifically to those of Freire, Lave and Wenger, Mezirow and the transformational education theorists.

This paper reflects on research conducted on the role of interior designers in retail design within the South African retail sector. Based on three leading corporate retailers, the paper explores the contribution of interior designers to retail design in the South African clothing and footwear retail context. In 2008 these retail companies collectively held more than 50 per cent of a R96.2 billion retail market share.

Their primary turnover is generated through consumer purchases concluded in retail stores. The design of retail stores have become a means of marketing communication and are commonly used as a differentiation strategy by retailers. It is here that interior designers can make a considerable contribution to retailers.

This study examines the concept of visual plagiarism within a contemporary cultural context shaped by postmodern design theory and the digital information age, as a challenging concern for tertiary level graphic design education.

This paper does not condone plagiarism, however it asks design lecturers to reconsider taken-for-granted assumptions that students operate in an unambiguous environment of 'wrong' and 'right' when it comes to the concept of visual plagiarism. It seems that graphic design students find it increasingly difficult to navigating the grey areas between plagiarism, appropriation, homage, inspiration, 'referencing, coincidence and 'accident'.

As a teacher of architectural design in the first year of the Bachelor of Architectural Studies degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, I found that the attrition amongst certain groups of "previously disadvantaged" students was noticeably higher than amongst white students. It became my focus to empirically adapt my teaching to try to facilitate the potential for a successful outcome for all students.

This paper describes the course before 2009, the pedagogical interventions that were made from 2009 to 2011 and the course outcomes. The interventions mainly consisted of practical reorganization, building up cognitive skills and academic behaviours. Current research should reveal whether or which interventions may have influenced the improved throughput.

Design thinking features in post-modern educational literature (Doll 1979, 1986, 1993; Kress 1996; Cope, & Kalantzis 2003) as a construct that purportedly enables educators to prepare students to deal with complexity and „super-complexity‟ (Barnett 1996; 2000; 2003; 2006) when they enter their professions. Although not explicitly stated, post-modern educational literature tends to stress the importance of systems thinking, critical problem solving, cognitive flexibility, abductive and connective reasoning as competences that prepare professionals to also perform optimally within a post-modern cultural situation and in age of information and super-complexity.