Communicate Insights and Ideas

Course summary

Communicate Insights and Ideas is an applied professional module for public designers who need to make design work clear, accessible and useful to different audiences.

Communication is part of design practice throughout a project, not only a way of presenting the final answer. Designers need to explain problems, insights, ideas, decisions, risks and unresolved issues so that colleagues, decision-makers, users and stakeholders can understand the work and contribute effectively. The module develops the professional judgement needed to adapt communication to the audience, select appropriate visual, verbal, written and materialised styles, and use suitable channels inside and outside the design team.

Students apply the practice to a work-based challenge and produce a communication pack that demonstrates how design work can be explained in different ways. The module develops universal communication capability for public designers rather than specialist content, graphic or communication design skills.

Who this course is for

This module is designed for existing and aspiring public designers who need to communicate design work to colleagues, decision-makers, users, stakeholders and other audiences.

It is relevant to people designing public policies, services, interactions, communications, operational systems or spaces.

Students must complete Introduction to Public Design before taking this module.

They should also have access to a suitable work-based challenge through which they can apply the practice independently.

What you will learn

How the course works

This is an applied professional module combining classroom learning with independent workplace practice. Students learn through a structured sequence:

• teaching of the concepts, methods and frameworks that underpin the practice;
• public-sector case studies that show how the practice is used;
• short practical exercises using different communication styles and channels;
• group application through a realistic scenario developed across the module;
• reflection on learning and planning for workplace application.

Following the classroom component, students complete a two-day independent work-based project in which they apply the skills to a real challenge. They then spend a further day preparing their portfolio entry, completing their project reflection and taking part in a design crit.

Assessment and accreditation

This module is formally assessed. Students submit a portfolio entry demonstrating how they have applied all the skills associated with the practice in a real work environment. The expected professional artefact is a communication pack, supported by evidence of how the student identified audiences, selected appropriate styles and channels, and explained the design work.

Students also complete a project reflection and present their work at a design crit.

A teacher from the Government School of Design assesses the portfolio evidence against the Public Design Capability Framework. Students are assessed on their deployment of the required skills, rather than the production quality of the communication pack or the overall success of the project.

Students who successfully complete the module receive professional certification jointly badged by the Government School of Design and the Chartered Society of Designers.

Each completed module contributes to the student’s professional portfolio. Students who successfully complete all seven Universal Public Design Practice modules will be assessed for chartered status through the Chartered Society of Designers.