Design Categories

It is difficult to tailor questions or target feedback ratings without somehow splitting student uploads in to categories or otherwise tagging them. Currently Student Designers use the following tags:

• Graphic Design 
• Product Design 
• Illustration 
• Interactive Design
• Motion Graphics
• Packaging
• Fashion and Textiles
• Interior Design
• Craft
• Service Design
• Photography
• Web Design

Whilst this seems a fine system we decided to take another look at how similar sites define the creative arts. We looked at:

• Creative Review
• Design Week
• Communication Arts
• Computer Arts
• The Guardian
• Deviant Art
• Flickr
• Behance

amongst others and complied a quick graphic showing the common denominators below.

There were few surprises in the top five however I was surprised to see Typography and Advertising and Architecture within the top ten. So many design sites are dedicated to branding that I had imagined it would feature higher. Also, disturbing in their absence were textiles and product design. As this was only limited research and was conducted by students who's prime focus is Graphic Design it is perhaps understandable that the bias shows in the outcome.

However, I wouldn't say this has been a wasted exercise. Now is the time to start thinking of generalised topics/questions to inspire conversation within the feedback tool.

To be continued...