Traditions associated with the physical studio in design education have obstructed translation to an online model. Literature on design pedagogy reveals the studio is considered essential for design education. This perception can be traced to the atelier model in the fine arts, in which students practised under a master. This method also underpinned the early twentieth-century development of design curriculum at the Bauhaus, whose mission was to unite art and industry. This paper examines the essential attributes of the traditional design studio alongside current on-campus experience to better understand studio dynamics. I argue that, while teaching design in an online environment may be complex, it is possible. Barriers to online design education relate to the traditional studio experience, which differs to the contemporary on-campus design studio. Only through in-depth consideration of the current context can an equivalent online learning environment and community of practice occur.

This article examines the deliberations and actions of a group of communication design educators in replacing discretionary grading in eight core units of a design course with a combination of pass/fail grading, rich formative feedback and a reinvigorated studio environment. The changes sought to better focus students on their creative process and improve their awareness of their acquisition of attributes, skills and knowledge along the path to becoming work-ready graduates. The traditional studio model of graphic design education approaches student learning through immersion in practice, imagining novice designers absorbing abilities and dispositions through experimentation and proximity to discipline experts and peers. If this model ever truly operated in Australia’s design schools, it has been eviscerated by the massification, marketization and rationalization of tertiary education since the early 1990s. Australian design education now operates with significantly reduced contact hours, tightly scheduled classes and standardized administrative, classroom and assessment practices that do not effectively model professional practice and limit students’ development of creative confidence. Another barrier to fostering students’ design acumen is their frequent fixation on grades as markers of success. We looked to removing grades to revitalize students’ flagging creative ambitions within the constraints of a tertiary education system we could not change. In stressing that a move to pass/fail grading is not an action to be taken lightly, we discuss our research into its advantages and disadvantages, the integral reconceptualization of learning and teaching approaches required to make the change and the challenges in implementation. This included understanding how students and staff interacted in the studio, their emotional and philosophical attachment to graded assessment, the effort required to communicate the changes to staff and students and developing resources to combat the fragmentation of the educational experience, which risks stripping change of its meaning and purpose.

In this paper, we explore the evolution of graphic design and its education in Ghana. Graphic design emerged in Ghana through colonisation, which influenced the perceptions of traditional art forms. We review the tensions between Western and indigenous trends in Ghanaian art and design and explore existing pedagogical philosophies in Ghana's graphic design education. Ghana's rich traditional and cultural values, including spirituality, proverbial meaning and symbolism, are embedded in its art and design. Colonisation and the adoption of Western religion and global values caused indigenous Ghanaian art to be regarded as primitive and fetishistic. Similarly, Ghanaian graphic design was and continues to be influenced by the West. We argue that designers must embrace their cultural identity, both professionally and educationally, to empower the graphic design community to decolonise Ghanaian design.

Authentic learning is widely recognised as critical for graduate employability, yet embedding it across curricula presents challenges, including resourcing, time for redevelopment, and managing large-scale cultural change. Scalable approaches require pilot studies to explore how authentic learning principles can be implemented and scaffolded effectively. This paper presents a case study of an Australian university’s co-created ‘Authentic Learning Blueprint’, designed to embed industry/community engaged learning throughout the learner’s experience. Phase one involved a team of educators, drawing on insights from learners, and employer feedback to co-develop the Blueprint. The Blueprint allows learners to progress through scaffolded stages, Novice, Associate, and Emerging Practitioner, gaining discipline-specific and industry-ready skills through real-world project briefs and work-integrated learning experiences. The Blueprint distributes teaching and learning responsibilities across learners, educators, and industry/community in a three-way partnership model. Learning experiences were designed to reflect knowledge and skills relevant to professional practice. In phase two, the proof-of-concept was applied to two design units, one undergraduate and one postgraduate, and we tested acceptance and scalability, with positive student feedback. Phase three showcases how the Blueprint then informed curriculum redesign within the design school’s flagship course, including trials of ungraded assessment to further support authentic learning. The findings demonstrate that a co-created, scaffolded approach integrating industry-engaged experiences from enrolment to graduation can bridge the gap between academia and professional practice. This study contributes a practical framework for embedding authentic learning at scale, offering insights for institutions seeking to enhance employability through curriculum innovation.

This article examines how graphic designers’ innovations in web design revealed the potential and capabilities of interactivity as a communication experience tool. During the early World Wide Web (1995–2008), graphic designers’ practice-based contribution to interactivity enhanced how people experienced this new technological domain. Few designers contributed to the scholarly discussion of interactivity. The main academic fields that did—Human–Computer Interaction, Interaction Design and Communication Theory—disregarded graphic design's contribution, slowing knowledge production around the nature and potential of interactivity. The article compares the three fields’ main ideas about interactivity to an analysis of 47 websites from 2008. It argues that although the idea of interactivity emerged as a transdisciplinary phenomenon, graphic designers’ practical implementation of interactivity in web design through the development of qualities of intuitiveness, enablement, responsiveness, connectivity, intentionality and experience extended its conceptualization beyond technical standards, functionality and theorization.