School of Design in the 1960s
Wes McClure was a student in the College of Design in the 1960s, and he discusses the schools programs and philosophy.
Interview on 2014-12-04 00:00:00 -0500
Transcript
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One is it was a multidisciplinary school, so we had architects, landscape architects, and what were then called product designers. Now you’d call them industrial designers.
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I think that’s what they’ve changed the name to. We didn’t have graphic design, we didn’t have art and design and some of these other disciplines then, but it was multidisciplinary.
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So at the beginning everybody took the same basic design course and to this day I have friends who were in my basic design class, most of whom are retired.
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So you were taking classes and exploring design problems with students who were going to go on into other fields, related but still a little bit different.
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My freshman design professor was Wayne Taylor and he was really good, kind of
an architect-artist.
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In the design professions there’s always this question of whether you are a professional or an artist or both, you know, and how is a designer different from an artist,
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so when you’re in basic design you’re really starting at a very basic level, so it’s really more about art. In those days it was.
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You honed your drawing skills. I had a drawing professor, Raymond Musselwhite, who was a sculptor but he taught me–. I love to draw, and I’ve drawn since I was – [way] before I went to college.
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He taught me more about drawing because it’s about how you see as well as what you do with your hands. It’s kind of hand-eye coordination.
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So the foundation years were all about honing those basic skills, getting ready then to use them professionally, and if you were a landscape architect you’d use them one way;
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if you’re a product designer you’re going to be looking at designing cars and other things; if you’re an architect you’re going to start to focus on buildings.
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So that didn’t happen until really the third year because the second year you got some more cross-disciplinary things, like a landscape studio in my case,
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with Professor Phillips, and you got to really be friendly with other students that were in these other disciplines, one who became my partner after I graduated and was a landscape architect.
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So you sort of forge some bonds with these other students and with these other disciplines.
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One of the things about the design education is, in this multidisciplinary environment, you were doing this cross-disciplinary work
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which is a really important foundation for what happens when you get out in practice.
This video is an excerpt from a longer interview. Contact the Special Collections Research Center to request the transcript of the full interview.
