Name : DESIGNER: Careers and Professionalization

Authors: Christian Guellerin

Nicolas Minvielle

Marie deJacquelot

ISBN: 978-2-8041-6015-9

ISSN: 2032-6572

Publisher: De Boeck  www.deboeck.com

Direct link on the website:  http://superieur.deboeck.com/titres?id=29072_2_0

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Foreword by Christian Guellerin
President of the Cumulus Association
Director of l'ecole de design de nantes

Designers-Leaders have a great future ahead of them
In times past students were evaluated only based on their technical skills.
Today, however, institutions are beginning to take into consideration other skills such as the
students' ability to run meetings with technicians, engineers, philosophers, sociologists and
artists with a view to devising new concepts, solutions, tangible or virtual products and to
creating new uses.

Along the same line, design schools have become more job-oriented and now aim at training
creative professionals that will easily find a position and move upwards or move on.
Today to assess the quality of degrees and curriculums we must first and foremost appraise
the value of the jobs they lead to, and this we can do by observing how postgraduate
students and young graduates have prepared their future, by trying to see if they have
reached their career objectives.

Students used to enroll in design schools mostly, if not solely, to acquire technical skills.
Now training in a design school is a true way to engage in a long-term career as a creative
professional in the service of innovation, users and development.

Much is at stake with this evolution in design courses. Indeed many companies worried by
globalization and finance-driven economical models are rethinking their production
processes and questioning their beliefs in terms of business and marketing, and thus hiring
massively and differently. In this context, designers-leaders have a great future ahead of
them!