Inscape Education Group

Established in  1981 by Harry Edmonds and Cherry Whitehead, Inscape Education Group is still the oldest privately owned multi-disciplinary creative institution in South Africa. Inscape Education Group is also accredited by the Council of Higher Education (CHE) and registered on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).

  • Bachelor of Design Degree, specialising in: Graphic Design, Interior Design, Fashion Design and Idea Generation (NQF: 7)
  • Diploma in Interior Design and Diploma in Graphic Design (NQF 6)
  • Higher Certificate in: Design Techniques, Architectural Technology, Interior Decorating and Fashion Design (NQF 5)
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Exploring student perspectives and challenges in engaging with decolonization in a private higher education institution in South Africa

AuthorInstitution
Martins, EstherInscape Education Group

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy
Interior & Furniture Design
Martins - Exploring student perspectives and challenges in engaging with decolonization.pdf

Decolonisation has gained significant attention within South African public higher education, fuelled greatly by the Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall movements of 2015 and 2016, with many institutions looking to address historical biases and promote a more inclusive curriculum.

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Who authors learning? Teaching design with intelligent technology

AuthorInstitution
Goode, HeatherInscape Education Group
Potter, Mary-AnneInscape Education Group

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy
Goode - Who authors learning.pdf

African philosophies of Ubuntu prioritise humanising the community of learning. Contextualising Ubuntu within the emerging Fifth Industrial Revolution (5IR) creates a tension between algorithms and the craft of design scholarship. The effect of the 5IR, while being more human-centred, is also unpredictable in terms of how technology replaces or automates human activity. This has led students to use technology tools to shortcut or circumvent activities that result in deep or transformative learning. Within the context of design education, this threatens the aptitudes and dispositions needed for engaging with the design process with the goal of establishing critical and creative authorship.

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Undergraduate design students’ experiences of decision making in the framing stage of a collaborative design project

AuthorInstitution
Giloi, SusanInscape Education Group
Potter, Mary-AnneInscape Education Group
Liebenberg, HeinInscape Education Group
Martins, EstherInscape Education Group
Dehrmann, AnnikaInscape Education Group

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy
Giloi - Undergraduate design students’ experiences of decision making .pdf

Collaboration is recognised as essential in the process of solving large-scale complex problems and can therefore be observed in both the design industry and in design education. As part of design collaboration, design teams go through a process of framing the design problem, proposing potential solutions, and taking the steps required to produce an outcome. Framing, as originally defined by Schön (1999), provides a method to identify the decisions that a design team takes on their journey to establish potential design solutions. Ideally, for a collaboration to be successful design teams need to arrive at a share frame characterised by a common understanding of the problem, solution, and actions.

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SPOT, the 4IR soft skills strategy for South African interior design graduates: An integrative literature review

AuthorInstitution
Scheffer, LeanaInscape Education Group

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Interior & Furniture Design
SPOT, the 4IR soft skills strategy for South African interior design graduates: An integrative literature review

The 2020 South African Presidential Commission on the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) presented five development pillars for the South African 4IR strategy, with the People and Skills pillar emphasising the role of the education sector in South Africa’s successful global participation in the 4IR. The report identifies a lack of soft skills such as creativity and problem solving in new graduates, adversely affecting their work-preparedness and employability. The World Economic Forum’s 15 top skills for 2025 also placed soft skills as the top six future workplace skills. Tertiary educators have the opportunity and responsibility to prepare graduates for this shift to the 4IR-workplace by developing soft skills relevant to their discipline.

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An educational interior design framework for promoting greater inclusivity of the aged living in multigenerational households

AuthorInstitution
Shireen GovenderInscape Education Group
Potter, Mary-AnneInscape Education Group

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Interior & Furniture Design
An educational interior design framework for promoting greater inclusivity of the aged living in multigenerational households

Multigenerational households are inhabited by three or more generations cohabiting; however, homes are not always designed to accommodate multiple generations. Having been raised within a home filled with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, parents and siblings, the personal experience of the primary researcher has been drawn on to frame the analysis of the challenges associated with multigenerational living. Multigenerational living requires functional spaces: space that efficiently includes all occupants to create a harmonious environment.

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Dismantling boundaries: Does a transdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary tertiary education approach support the development of creative and critical thinking for an Afrikan design and business context?

AuthorInstitution
Goode, HeatherInscape Education Group
Potter, Mary-AnneInscape Education Group

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy
Dismantling boundaries: Does a transdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary tertiary education approach support the development of c

In this paper, we examine the impact that transdisciplinary and/or multi-disciplinary educational approaches have in developing critical and creative thinking competencies in a bachelor’s degree context. Strategies relating to integrated assessments within research-based modules are used to explore how transcending disciplinary boundaries in different fields are approached – one a business qualification and the other a creative/design-based qualification. This is also particularly significant in terms of an emerging call to contextualise curricula for Afrika, including adopting more decolonised transdisciplinary research approaches.

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The Imperative for Developing Critical and Creative Thinking Competencies in Postgraduate Design Education

AuthorInstitution
Potter, Mary-AnneInscape Education Group
Goode, HeatherThe Da Vinci Institute

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Research
The Imperative for Developing Critical and Creative Thinking Competencies in Postgraduate Design Education

Design education has an integral association with engaging both critical and creative thinking. While the previous critical cross-field outcomes explicitly fostered both critical and creative development (SAQA 2000), the newer level descriptors (SAQA 2012) focus almost exclusively on critical thinking. This could be because critical and creative thinking are often regarded as synonymous. Authors like Macat International Limited (2017) support this understanding by including creative thinking as a component of critical thinking, while other authors differentiate between the two concepts.

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The Benefits of Incorporating a Decolonised Gaze for Design Education

AuthorInstitution
Giloi, SusanInscape Education Group

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Graphic Design & Visual Art
The Benefits of Incorporating a Decolonised Gaze for Design Education

Although calls to decolonise education can be seen as threats to replace existing curricula they can also be seen as an opportunity to scrutinise what is valued in design education and how this might be impacted by calls to decolonise. In this paper, which makes use of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) (Maton 2010a, 2014) to identify the underlying knowledge-knower structure of graphic design assessment, the significance of a specialist gaze for disciplines such as design is outlined. The gaze (Maton 2014) provides knowers with access to the valued knowledge of the discipline and in disciplines such as graphic design is essential to being able to recognise good and bad design and to make the decisions required in the design process.

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Axis Mundi: A Pedagogical Exploration of the Decolonising Potential of Mythology

AuthorInstitution
de Villiers, CourtneyInscape Education Group

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy
Axis Mundi: A Pedagogical Exploration of the Decolonising Potential of Mythology - de Villiers

The postmodern condition is such that economies, globalisation, technologies and societal norms have undergone drastic changes and rapid progressions. All of which has made an undeniable impact on the state and function of contemporary education. In a world now orientated towards a “knowledge-based economy”, it becomes ever more pertinent to grapple with not only how knowledge is defined but also how knowledge is constructed and acquired. The #Decolonise movement makes a call for a knowledge based economy that can be understood as vernacular in nature – knowledge structures that are relatable or relevant to specific regional or cultural origins.

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Extending The Learning Landscape: Adapting To A New Student

AuthorInstitution
Buhrs, HelenInscape Education Group
Schoeman, MornayInscape Education Group

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy
Extending The Learning Landscape: Adapting To A New Student

According to Megan Hughes (2006) the generation that educators of the 21st Century have to deal with is referred to as “Generation Y”. They represent the by-product of the previous generation, i.e. the “baby boomers”, who heralded a “surge of new inventions and improvements” (Hughes, 2006), allowing the next generation benefits of improved technology and a much easier life.

“The Y Generation doesn't like hard work, even when it's for its own benefit, and is very much in love with anything that's 'instant'. “(Hughes.2006)

Design educators often adopt teaching and learning methods of a traditional nature. These practices may no longer be effective in the fast-paced world of tomorrow.

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DEFSA conferences

DEFSA promotes relevant research with the focus on design + education through its biennial conferences, to promote professionalism, accountability and ethics in the education of young designers. Our next conference is a hybrid event. See above for details.

Critical skills endorsement

Professional Members in good standing can receive a certificate of membership, but DEFSA cannot provide confirmation or endorsement of skills whatsoever. DEFSA only confirm membership of DEFSA which is a NPO for Design Education in South Africa (https://www.defsa.org.za/imagine).