Design in Extraordinary Times - Interim Report #3: Mentoring Designers

As part of BIDA’s ongoing Design in Extraordinary Times webinar series our 30 July event brought together an impressive list of speakers to discuss the important subject of Mentoring Designers.  Our biggest every audience too – so apologies to anyone who wasn’t able to join the event.  The webinar introduction and each of the guest contributions are also available and collated on YouTube . BIDA Board Director Dr Stephen Green introduced and hosted the event and he also provides a summary report

Key messages are:

• COVID and remote working have exposed the opportunity for a much needed wide variety of enhanced interactions between industry and the next generation of the profession.  The profession needs to work together and with other sectors to reflect society as a whole and the vast range of professional activities with a design ingredient.

• The idea of ‘reverse mentoring’ highlights the important point that there are benefits for both sides of a mentoring scenario.  Also, as Clive Grinyer says: ‘Mentoring is not about telling designers how to design’ and includes building resilience, confidence and effective communication skills.

• ‘The profession is very fractured and needs to come together more’ (William Knight).  This starts with tackling design in schools which has been demoted in the curriculum and typically not seen as a viable career option despite the UK’s world leading strength in the creative industries.

• BIDA will continue to support building mentoring capacity across our profession and welcomes interest in and contributions to our activities.  There are a number of actions BIDA can take and we’ll follow these up over the coming months.  Please get in touch if you would like to get involved