An integral part of curriculum design is continuously reviewing workplace and industry needs and requirements. International design research and research of a general nature provide some guidance for curriculum developers and lecturers, but research on the local design industry is fragmented and scarce. This lack of available and rigorous research on the local design industry provides a gap for this paper that explores the nature, needs, and requirements of the local design industry and the changing career pathways of designers.

Ubuntu philosophy is based on the premise that umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (a person is a person because of other people). Ubuntu emphasises empathy, respect, and sensitivity as core tenets. Ubuntu principles are part of the teaching philosophy of Design for Social Change (DSC) that we use in our visual communication design course at a university of technology in South Africa. This teaching philosophy seeks to find solutions that will not only foster aesthetically pleasing and functional creative outputs from students but will also address the root causes of social problems and empower communities to create change that is enduring and sustainable.

This paper reports on the use of object biography writing as a method for Communication Design students to construct knowledge in the Design Studies classroom. Students used a guideline constructed around the stages of the birth, life and death of an object to write an object biography on a mass-manufactured object of their own choice with a focus on how the object is used by individuals to construct and express gender identity.