ART 418 08: Should designers design?

Monday, September 21, 2026 · Seminar

What kind of work do you want to do as a designer, and how will you decide what is worth making? Begin with Monteiro’s account of what a designer does, then ask what design means as AI changes the work. Define design, work, technology, artificial, and real, with short word histories to help examine your assumptions. Put Wild’s Emigre essay from the first week beside Soleio and Jenny Wen, and use Hall to test what counts as evidence. Consider which advice you would follow as a beginning designer. Your complete video pitch is due before class.

Read before this class

- Monteiro, Design Is a Job. chapters 1 and 2, 22 pp. - Hall, Just Enough Research. chapter 5, User Research: interview structure and conducting the interview, 12 pp. - Cuervo, The Rise of Designers Who Ship. video, 62 min. Watched before class. Assigned Sep 2. The first of the three positions we argue today. - Wen, The design process is dead. Why designers can no longer trust it. video, 25 min. Watched before class. The third position: that what moved was the process itself.

Due

- The pitch, recorded.

Assigned today

- Reading for Process: Definition, read by Wednesday, September 23, 2026.

Materials

- [The discussion slides](/lecture/art418-s8.html). Questions, source passages, and separate working definitions, beginning with Monteiro’s “What Is a Designer?” Etymologies and present-day meanings connect design, work, technology, artificial, and real to your future role. - [The discussion slides as a PDF](/lecture/art418-s8.pdf). The seminar deck, including its source references.

---

Class 08 of 28, ART 418, The Business of Design, Charleston Southern University, Fall 2026.