University of Johannesburg

UJ is a vibrant and cosmopolitan university, anchored in Africa and driven by a powerful strategy focused on attaining global excellence and stature. With an emphasis on independent thinking, sustainable development and multiple partnerships, UJ is an international university of choice. The University is guided by the Vice-Chancellor’s vision of “Positioning UJ in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) within the context of the changing social, political and economic fortunes of Africa.” In the context of FADA, this is framed in terms of ‘Society 4.0’ which recognises the dynamic potential of a multi-disciplinary, creative environment in finding socially responsible, creative solutions to the challenges of our time.

The Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA) at University of Johannesburg offers programmes in eight creative disciplines, expanding these fields beyond their traditional boundaries through internal and external collaborations. It has a strong focus on sustainability and relevance, and engages actively with the dynamism, creativity and diversity of Johannesburg in imagining new approaches to art and design education. Equipped with state-of-the art, custom-built facilities, the Faculty is staffed by highly regarded academics, artists and designers.

The Faculty is home to approximately 1 300 students who study and work in the custom-built FADA Building on the Bunting Road Campus. 

Many of our graduates are employed in South Africa or internationally in diverse areas of industry, or work as freelance designers, architects or independent artists. Whatever their preference, they have been properly prepared as professionals through creative and entrepreneurial development, which are key factors in the programmes offered.

Translocal fashion subjectivities and the ‘Afro’ fashion look: Drum magazine project at a South African comprehensive university

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Media & Communications Design

Using the second phase of a two-year-long project called the Drum Magazine Project as a case study, this paper responds to how we can address cultural pride and preservation of uniqueness in a globalised world. Drawing inspiration from the landmark South African magazine, the project embarked on a process of teaching South African fashion history through archives from this magazine. Building on the first phase’s focus on the 1950s and 1960s, the second phase included students working with theories of translocality (Hughes 2022) and the ‘Afro’ fashion look (Ford 2015) to study 1970s fashion in Johannesburg as an expression of translocal subjectivities.

Sustainable knowledge in communities: Design for social good through fashion education

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Fashion, Jewellery & Textile Design

Design for social good refers to the application of design knowledge and skills to solve problems to enable a better future. From a fashion perspective, design for social good could refer to the pursuit of environmental sustainability and to uplift communities. Design education, at undergraduate-level aims to encourage students to apply design knowledge to improve the world and potentially introduce research methodology. However, literature concerning pedagogical strategies for design for social good in a South African fashion design higher education context is lacking. To fill this gap, a design for social good teaching and learning project was presented to third year Fashion Diploma students at a South African fashion higher education institution.

Students’ attitudes towards change: Co-design in fashion education

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Fashion, Jewellery & Textile Design

Co-design, under the broader scope of human-centred design, refers to an approach, attitude, alternative way of thinking, and engagement with design practice. In an educational context, although limited, scholarship exists around co-design pedagogy, which coincides with the need for future-focused design education, including fashion. However, a research gap exists in terms of student attitudes towards co-design practice. Also, a further gap exists regarding fashion education, in that conventional pedagogies that foster a culture of designer-centeredness and self-expressivity remain at the forefront, with educators reluctant to embrace a co-design pedagogy. Hence, the criticality of fashion education is questionable in terms of its future-focus.

Seeds of freedom: The watermelon in Palestine posters

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Graphic Design & Visual Art

The visibility of the watermelon as a representation of the Palestinian cause has exponentially increased in recent years, particularly on social media. Given the popularity of the watermelon, its use in poster design warrants an in-depth investigation. This paper presents the results of an analysis of Palestine posters that have incorporated the watermelon from 2023 to 2025. The study provides insight into the way the watermelon is used in contemporary Palestine posters and adds to the literature on Palestine posters specifically and liberation graphics more broadly. A sample of 408 posters was drawn from the web-based Palestine Poster Project Archives (PPPA) and subjected to content and semiotic analyses.

Resonant realms: Bridging tradition and transformation in Afrikan-centred design

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Design Education Strategy

While global platforms provide wider recognition for ‘Afrikan’ design, they present challenges such as cultural appropriation and the erosion of indigenous knowledge (Oguibe, 2002). Through an Afrikan-centred and critical design approach, there is the potential to challenge the dominant narrative and foster cultural resilience by grounding creative practices in Rasa principles. Rasa theory is an aesthetic framework derived from classical Indian philosophy (Pandit 2024). This paper addresses the challenge of preserving ‘Afrikan’ cultural identity and fostering societal engagement through design.

Reimagining design education for a new generation of designers

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Graphic Design & Visual Art

It is inevitable that with the rapid advancement of digital technologies, design education is being influenced greatly, particularly through the expansion of online learning and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI). Within a relatively short timeframe (which included the COVID-19 pandemic) there has been an accelerated transition to digital learning environments, exposing both opportunities and challenges in online graphic design education. While we are constantly shown that online tools offer potential for enhancing collaboration, participation, and feedback, it is important to remember that their effectiveness is dependent on accessibility, digital literacy, and educator preparedness.

Reimagining cultural heritage archives through motion-based digital narratives in design education

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Photography, Film & Multimedia

The inaccessibility of global cultural heritage limits its potential to shape identities and inform design, a challenge compounded by historical power imbalances in knowledge production. This paper proposes a design education framework integrating Indigenous knowledge systems, critical theory, and human-centred design. It addresses digital cultural heritage preservation in a postcolonial context using a South African case study. Drawing on a Title Sequence Design Module at a South African university in a Digital Design department, we developed a project collaboration with a South African art museum that explores motion-based digital narratives to democratise access to heritage, preserve culture and traditions, disrupt colonial legacies, and cultivate ethical designers.

Integrating small-scale fabrication technologies in design education for enhanced studio-based learning

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Product & Industrial Design

The evolving landscape of Industrial Design education requires a balance between theoretical instruction and hands-on experience with manufacturing processes and relevant materials. However, many traditional teaching methods do not provide sufficient opportunities for students to engage directly with fabrication and material manipulation, limiting their ability to develop practical skills essential for the industry. The lack of integration between conceptual design and real-world manufacturing techniques creates a gap in industry readiness. To address this challenge, this study explores the integration of small-scale countertop sized fabrication tools and machines within the lecture venues to create an immersive Studio-Based Learning (SBL) environment.

Innovation by invitation? A hybrid developmental design model for stirring co-creation in socio-technical continuums

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Design Education Research

This paper proposes a hybrid developmental Design model for innovative research, practice and learning in complex socio-technical systems by combining topical theories and methods. It begins by challenging the problem of exclusive Design approaches and typical Design models which use centralised development and beneficiation. The model asks Designers to rethink their future role and relinquish control via a Participatory Design approach where Designers are responsible for demystifying the value impact of Design through a process of ongoing engagement (Lasky 2013, p. 24). The model’s framework combines three Design theories that have common themes: ‘Socio-Technical Systems Design’, ‘Appropriate Technology’ and ‘Design for Sustainability’.

Future-focused design education: Insights from a South African industrial design project presented on a global stage

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Product & Industrial Design

This paper examines how sustainability and future-focused design can be effectively integrated into design education through a case study of a third-year Industrial Design project in South Africa. As part of an international design competition, students were challenged to critically engage with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by identifying and addressing actionable problems. Working in teams, they developed technically refined product solutions within a computer-aided design (CAD) environment, applying human-centred and sustainability-driven design principles. The project outcome analysed in this study tackled organic waste management in lower-income urban areas under the competition theme of “sustainable habitat/city infrastructure”.

DIY not? The value of zines in graphic design education

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Graphic Design & Visual Art
Media & Communications Design

As the design industry is impacted by rapidly evolving technologies, tertiary graphic design curriculums must be continuously updated to ensure that students, specifically exit-level students, are prepared for the rigours of industry. Zines and DIY alternative publications have limited commercial value, and so may be regarded as less important than learning units that respond to the commercial (and increasingly digital) nature of industry. This paper argues that not only do zines remain relevant, but that the inclusion of a zine project in an undergraduate design curriculum is a valuable addition to the programme.

Cultural continuity in Xhosa women’s clothing

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Fashion, Jewellery & Textile Design

Cultural evolution is an integral part of cultural preservation, especially in relation to fashion because culture interlaces the survival, representation and the everyday practices of a specific collectives of people. As clothing forms part of everyday practices and is viewed simultaneously with the body, it serves as a visual tool for the expression of individual and social identities. Clothing is arguably the most visually expressive aspects of cultural identity.

Anticipatory design futures: Operationalising design fiction to strategically account for preferable futures

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Design Education Strategy

The integration of 4IR technologies into the human world provides an opportunity for meaningful social transformation to occur. Paradoxically, 4IR technologies also pose potentially harmful threats to society. Hence, there has never been a more important time to ensure that considerations of their deployment into the social world are based on ethical principles. However, engaging with the internal dynamics of 4IR technologies and their dispersed, systemic nature requires specific technical knowledge that typically falls outside the remit of human-centred design. It is in light of this ethical concern coupled with new demands of that this paper will explore a new direction for Design and design education as ‘more-than-human-centred design’ practices.

Interactive narratives for social impact: A new approach to media intervention

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Media & Communications Design

Mass intervention is crucial when tackling pressing social issues, such as gender-based violence. One method in approaching this is the use of the public service announcement (PSA). Traditional PSAs, such as posters and short films, are linear media forms. They rely on passive viewership and an assumption of audience behavioural change, following engagement with the artefact. This limits the PSA’s potential to inspire long-term, sustained, societal change as the effectiveness is highly dependent on the cognitive engagement of the viewer with the content. My research suggests that media employing the use of decision-based fictional narratives, such as interactive film, is more effective in enacting change.

Documentary animation as a medium for public history

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Graphic Design & Visual Art

Animation is a medium that is increasingly being used in the documentary genre for its symbolic and metaphoric functions; the reenactment of events for which live action footage is missing or non-existent, the recreation of phenomena not accessible to normal human vision (such as those that were pre-photographic or are cosmically distant or microscopic), as well as the portrayal of subjective psychological states. This paper proposes that in addition to these established functions of animation in a non-fiction context, we should also consider its potential as a form of public history, giving voice to individual perspectives in a novel and  symbolically-rich medium.

Creative correspondence: Leveraging design artefacts to generate shared plausible futures

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Design Education Strategy

Design anthropologists Gatt and Ingold's concept of correspondence describes a designed artefact's ability to appropriately represent a given community's perspectives. For design-researchers operating in co-design contexts, correspondence is helpful for ensuring that final outcomes are 'tuned' to the current and aspirational experiences of user-communities.

However, while design-researchers working in practice-led contexts share many concepts and techniques with their design anthropology colleagues, this paper argues that for Design approaches concerned with plausible, anticipatory perspectives, correspondence is a limited concept that can hamper the role of design imagination. In response to this claim, this paper contributes the following outcomes.

The integration of critical thinking and digital manufacturing in interior design product development

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Interior & Furniture Design

In recent years, digital fabrication has become an increasingly popular tool in the design field. By integrating digital manufacturing techniques into the design process, designers can produce more innovative and sustainable products while minimising material waste. In this paper, we present a model of approach that incorporates digital fabrication into the prototyping of interior design products using Origami-based techniques. Origami, the antique art of paper folding, has long been admired for its beauty and precision. One of the main benefits of Origami-based techniques is that they provide a way to create complex forms using only simple folds, transforming a bi-dimensional surface into a 3D object.

Bridging the gap between industry and the lecture hall: Small-scale manufacturing machines for experiential learning within the teaching environment

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Product & Industrial Design

Students in Design Education are equipped to enter their respective creative industries. It is the intention that their skills and capabilities, once they graduate, are matched as closely as possible to the industries into which they will fit. During their time within the higher education faculty, they need to be exposed to relevant technologies and processes. By adapting manufacturing technologies for small-scale use in the classroom, students can gain hands-on experience and integrate these technologies into their learning processes.

Physical meets digital: Advancing industrial design higher education through the incorporation of projection-mapping in undergraduate teaching and learning

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Product & Industrial Design

As emerging digital technologies become increasingly integrated into our everyday lives, it is important to evaluate how they can be used both as beneficial tools in the design process and how they can be effectively integrated into higher education pedagogy to enhance teaching and learning processes. As we enter the fast-changing Industry 4.0, students must be suitably and sufficiently equipped with a wide range of skills that Industry 4.0 requires. This includes the “hard skills” of practically using emerging digital technologies, as well as the “soft skills” required to effectively apply these technologies in sustainable and ethical ways.

It's a zoo in there: Reflections and case studies from collaboration and participation design with Johannesburg Zoo Edu-Centre 2011–2023

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Graphic Design & Visual Art

Over the past twelve years, the University of Johannesburg Department of Graphic Design students have developed many feasible solutions based on human-centred and participation design principles. Implementing these design solutions to foster positive change is often problematic owing to funding and handovers; consequently, many projects remain at the conceptual stage, with few making a positive difference to the external stakeholders. Nevertheless, despite these challenges, students often produce high-end and in-depth results when working with stakeholders.

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Our partners in promoting design education excellence

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).