DXH803 Professional Practice for Designers

Unit Outline: Semester 2 2024, Kelvin Grove, Internal

Overview

This unit enables you to outline a strategy for your future as a designer and present yourself as a design professional in public contexts. It is based on professional workshops and presentations that will cover collaborative and inclusive work practices. This unit serves as a capstone for the Interactive and Visual Design program, and is where you will bring together your individual creative expression, design understanding, technical knowledge, and organisational skills taught throughout the course. In it, you will present yourself as a design professional in public contexts. You will do this through identifying and planning your own professional strategy for your personal design philosophy and goals, and then publicly present a portfolio of design work to a professional standard. The work you choose to showcase can be a portfolio design piece developed in your design studio unit DXH801.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:

1. Demonstrate experimentation, initiative and judgement in planning, problem solving and decision making in professional practice for design (3-1)
2. Actively engage with the responsibilities of lifelong learning and ethical design practice independently, collaboratively and inclusively.(3-3)
3. Apply critical cognitive skills and creativity in conceptualising and realising an interaction design and visual communication project in a professional and public context (2-3)
4. Synthesise design knowledge through prototyping, written, and other creative expressions to communicate ideas and design projects at a professional level (2-5)

Content

Learning Approaches

You will have lectures on aspects of professional development, design practice and research from industry and research professionals. In a structured mentored environment and through independent work, you will identify and articulate your personal design philosophy and how this can inform your future trajectory as a professional. You will also work collaboratively and inclusively in groups to realise a major project outcome for professional presentation in a public context. This effort will be augmented by feedback from teaching staff and through a supportive process of peer critique.

Unit delivery
Contact hours for this unit are equivalent to approximately 3hrs per week, with the expectation of approximately 10hrs of independent work per week.

Please check the unit Canvas site for more details.

Feedback on Learning and Assessment

Feedback in this unit is provided to you in the following ways: formative feedback from teaching staff and peers; comments on summative assessment work in addition to criteria sheets; criteria sheet grading; feedback from teaching staff and peers.

Formative Assessment
Description: You will engage in sessions where you, your colleagues, and academic staff will discuss issues arising in the development and resolution of your work.
Weight 0%

Summative Assessment
You will be awarded a final grade on a 1 to 7 scale.

Assessment

Overview

There are two major assessment items in this unit. The first is a project to identify and plan your personal Professional Strategy while the second is a Strategy Realisation project that entails publicly presenting a portfolio of design work as a first step to realising your Professional Strategy.

LATE ASSESSMENT ITEMS
An assessment item submitted after the due date without an approved extension will not be marked. If you are unable to complete your assignment on time and you do not have an approved extension, you should submit on time whatever work you have done.

Faculty Assessment Information
To access complete Creative Industries Faculty Assessment Information please refer to the Canvas site for this unit.

Unit Grading Scheme

7- point scale

Assessment Tasks

Assessment: Professional Strategy

This assessment requires you to critique your own work and design within a context of contemporary design practice to identify and articulate your design philosophy and career goals. You also need to research, plan, strategise, design and deliver a career trajectory and strategy that is consistent with these.

Relates to learning outcomes
1 (3-1), 4 (2-5)

This is an assignment for the purposes of an extension.

Assessment: Strategy Realisation Project

This assessment requires you to research, plan, strategise, design and realise a first step of your Professional Strategy (assignment 1) as a public outcome. The work being realised can be a portfolio design piece developed in your design
DXH803 Professional Practice for Designers. As well as embodying your Professional Strategy, it must be realised and delivered to a professional standard for a public context. This needs to occur collaboratively and inclusively across your cohort. Initiative, innovation and experimentation and management of the project, its resources and time, as well as collaborative and inclusive work practices, are key. You will apply design processes and knowledge gained through your degree and need to demonstrate a high level of resolution of design and logistical details to ensure the success of the project.

Relates to learning outcomes
2 (3-3), 3(2-3), 4(2-5)

Academic Integrity

Students are expected to engage in learning and assessment at QUT with honesty, transparency and fairness. Maintaining academic integrity means upholding these principles and demonstrating valuable professional capabilities based on ethical foundations.

Failure to maintain academic integrity can take many forms. It includes cheating in examinations, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, and submitting an assessment item completed by another person (e.g. contract cheating). It can also include providing your assessment to another entity, such as to a person or website.

You are encouraged to make use of QUT’s learning support services, resources and tools to assure the academic integrity of your assessment. This includes the use of text matching software that may be available to assist with self-assessing your academic integrity as part of the assessment submission process.

Further details of QUT’s approach to academic integrity are outlined in the Academic integrity policy and the Student Code of Conduct. Breaching QUT’s Academic integrity policy is regarded as student misconduct and can lead to the imposition of penalties ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.

Requirements to Study

Requirements

All students and staff who access campus buildings and facilities are required to complete the Tier 1 General Health and Safety Induction. This must be completed online.

Resources

Resource Materials

Recommended text(s)

Schon, Donald (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books.

Software

Creative Cloud, HTML/CSS editor, other unit specific application. These are not compulsory, as QUT does provide 24/7 access to computer labs where you can work on your assessment.

Other

To successfully complete studies in IVD it is recommended you have the following materials

• A personal computer - we recommend a laptop (either mac or windows is suitable)
• Home internet connection
• A data tablet
• External Hard drive for moving large files from uni to home, and for backup
• A cloud-based storage service - Dropbox or similar.

You will require a range of drawing and artistic materials including:

• A4 size sturdy pre-bound sketchbook / 'visual diary' with a minimum of 50 pages. A good quality paper stock is recommended
• Fine line black felt pens, e.g. 0.2mm
• Graphite pencils in a number of weights (HB, 2B, 4B)
• Coloured pencils
• Pencil sharpener and eraser
• Coloured markers
• Digital storage media (USB memory stick or portable hard drive)
• Safety boots as required by the School of Design workshop (if your project necessitates this)

Risk Assessment Statement

Assessment involves working with and submitting digital files. As such it is recommended that you develop a regular process for backing up your work, as to ensure work is not lost in the event of a computer/hardware failure. Design projects requiring user involvement in evaluations must be discussed with academic staff and approved prior to being undertaken.

For risks associated with using campus buildings or facilities, refer to the Tier 1 General Health and Safety Induction.

Students may need to make use School of Design of workshop facilities in the construction of their design prototypes. Students will be required to undertake a workshop induction for the School of Design workshop facilities at the start of the semester if they have not already done so. Any students wishing to use specific equipment within the workshop must prepare a sketch of their work and show it to workshop technicians for advice. Students will receive inductions for other equipment under the direction of workshop staff, as needed.