Paradigm Shift: The Challenge to Graphic Design Education and Professional Practice in Post-Apartheid South Africa

摘要

Although this statement was written more than a decade ago by South African art historian Colin Richards, it might be said that, in spite of many changes, South Africans still are struggling with the "narrow roles that history has cast for [them]." Consequently, this paper seeks to explore some of the issues that have informed the way in which South African visual communications design and designers have attempted to meet the challenges of a country in transformation. Since Nelson Mandela's "long walk to freedom" in 1990, much has been said about the failure of apartheid. I! would be foolish, to underestimate the impact of this divisive poiicy on the lives and experiences of all who live in the country. On a physical level, apartheid created (designed) cities that were racially divided under the Group Areas Act, and on an intellectual level, separate education systems for the different races were introduced that created very "narrow roles" for the majority of learners. Culture was used as a tool to divide, hence, on a material and a symbolic level, multiple realities meant that individual South Africans experienced the country and its culture in profoundly different ways. For any paper that hopes to address design education and professional design practice issues in South Africa, this is especially important because it provides the context in which these activities take place. This is particularly true of marketing and advertising which, of necessity, have to deal with reality issues, either as a mirror or as an aspiration model.