Features of artistic and creative training in the field of industrial design in diverse universities of modern China

Syui Yun' Graduate Student, Department of Art History and Pedagogy of Art, Herzen State Pedagogical University 191186, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Moika embark., 48, room 6, room 51 xuyun@rambler.ru

Industrial design is a relatively new field for manufacturing and education in China. After the country's accession to the WTO, industrial design began to play a key role in creating its own well-known brands and enterprises in the XXI century, the image and status of local products, developing brands taking into account cultural characteristics, increasing the competitiveness of enterprises and products in international and domestic markets, promoting sustainable development of society. The concept and methods of industrial design have spread to creative fields, becoming a means of optimizing the distribution of resources between them and production. A specialist in this field is in the eyes of people, as a rule, the owner of innovative thinking, which helps to create design products that are important for both economic growth and cultural development. Moreover, he must be equally well versed in the beauty of forms and technologies, which, of course, is extremely rare, since the path of professional formation in this profession is not stable and may consist of a variety of components and circumstances.

Currently, the concept of "industrial design" is not just the research and development of an original product intended for mass production, the design of its appearance, but also the mechanism of promotion on the market, advertising and everything that is somehow connected with the embodiment in reality. At the beginning of the XXI century, the Council of the International Association of Industrial Design Industrial Design of China defined the essence of the profession as follows: "In the case of mass-produced products, due to training, technical knowledge, experience and visual perception, new qualities and specifications are given to materials, construction, shape, colors, surface finishes and decorations, which is called industrial design" ^{[1, p. 125]}. In accordance with this concept, a training model was formed in China for such specialists who should know all aspects of inventing and creating product design, packaging, advertising, positioning, market development, etc. At the same time, the starting point for him can be both science and technology, and fine art, and ideally both together. Graduates of Chinese universities majoring in Industrial Design can be both engineers and design artists. Such a watershed creates certain difficulties, since it assumes the presence of two different training models within the same specialty. This situation is unique, and requires a scientific understanding of the features of the structure of the educational process, the interaction of artistic, technical and other disciplines in the formation of future specialists. It should be noted that the issue of the correlation of fine art, especially academic drawing and painting, and design training in the context of higher education is devoted to the works of Russian researchers, for example, such as T. V. Antropova ^[2], V. R. Viitman ^[3], A.V. Danilova ^[4], K. A. Platunov ^[5]., A.V. Strizhak ^[6] et al. The growing interest in Russia in the design options of the educational process in teaching industrial design, the role of the artistic and creative component in it determine the relevance of this publication. Its scientific novelty is due to the fact that for the first time it highlights the specifics of conducting fine art classes in the preparation of designers in universities of various profiles in modern China, where such subjects are closely intertwined with humanities and technical related to the interdisciplinary nature of the chosen specialty.

Education in the field of industrial design in China began its formation relatively late in the 1980s, but it developed rapidly and at the beginning of the new century became one of the most popular specialties in China. Before the "cultural revolution", a course was taught in universities, which was called "Design modeling of light industry". The first educational institutions to introduce it into the educational process were the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts (now the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University) and the Wuxi Institute of Light Industry (now Jiangnan University). In 1982, with the approval of the Ministry of Education, a specialty was created at Hunan University and the Wuxi Institute of Light Industry, within which industrial designers were trained. In the new century, due to the growth and improvement of the market economy, it began to develop even more rapidly. The National Commission for Development and Reforms has even developed a draft "Industrial Design Industry Development Strategy", in which clear goals for the development of industrial design were put forward. So, by 2030, China should become a world power in design innovation ^[1].

In accordance with this course and in the conditions of reforming the entire educational system, universities and colleges needed to change the system of training such personnel ^{[7, p. 45]}. In recent years, many of them have received the right to award bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in the field of design, and thus a full-fledged system of design education has been created. The latter focuses on practice-oriented training. So, even in the Bauhaus education system, which Chinese universities are equal to, practical training was cultivated, in which students discovered and solved creative tasks through creative project activities. The training of specialists in China now includes mandatory mastery, for example, of skills such as creating sketches by hand or models using software, which are elements of one creative process. The methodology is also focused on the analysis and synthesis of information, the ability to verbally and in writing express their thoughts and ideas, the development of the ability to work in a team, etc.

In China, the conditions of each higher school are completely different, not to mention the difference in teaching between the Academy of Arts and, for example, a technical university. Moreover, China does not seek unification. Moreover, they see diversity as a way of development. Such a profession as industrial design often includes a variety of professional knowledge and requires long-term training, accumulation of practical experience mainly on their own. The question of how to give students the opportunity to use the limited time spent at the university to create a reasonable knowledge structure that meets the needs of social development has become an important topic in the theory and practice of vocational education in China. It is obvious that industrial designers both in my country and in Russia need not ready-made and firmly fixed knowledge and skills, but interdisciplinary cultural literacy, which includes drawing skills, or rather sketching, creating models, including their 3D visualization, interpersonal communication, a subtle sense of form and space, an understanding of, how to "bring" a product to market and much more.

The Chinese Academy of Arts at the Department of Industrial Design trains specialists in the design of transport, communications, furniture and toys. Students are introduced to such disciplines as "Drawing", "Professional painting", "Computer design", "Materials and Technologies", "Product structure", "Ergonomics of design", "Product Design", "Special Design", etc. There is no separate discipline related to drawing or painting, but sketching runs through all the objects with a red line. Sketches based on field observations are created when performing any creative project. At the same time, students are not required to have deep visual skills. The main thing is to feel the shape of the product, its connection with the spatial environment, function.

The Department of Industrial Design of the Academy of Arts and Design of Tsinghua University is an example of training such specialists in the environment of a multi-profile university. In the educational process, the emphasis is on practical training within the framework of creative projects in disciplines related to design. The training is divided into three levels: theoretical knowledge, basic skills and tools. Theoretical knowledge includes philosophy, psychology, design history, etc.; design and research methods; tools are mainly sketching, modeling, functional principles and other design possibilities. And here art and graphic training as an independent direction is not conducted, remaining at the level of basic drawing and working with color in line with certain educational projects. Teachers believe that design is not the creation of forms or decoration, but the solution of a problem in accordance with certain requirements. In their understanding, "purposeful action" within the framework of an educational creative task is design ^[8].

The Department of Industrial Design of Northwestern Polytechnic University in Shanxi Province specializes in the design of transport and mechanical equipment, research on the construction of production chains and everything that helps to "go to sea, fly in the air and travel." The complex and diverse field of study necessitated the training of specialists, both in the field of design in science and technology – the direction of training "Industrial Design", and in the field of art – "Product Design", which was previously referred to as "The Art of Design" ^[9]. Upon admission, all applicants pass an exam for knowledge of history and culture, but the second group also passes a creative test in the form of drawing and composition in painting. Students of both majors master basic drawing skills in their first year. At the same time, they take quite intensive and time-consuming courses in natural science and technology, higher mathematics, etc. They master theoretical material, which they consolidate with practice-oriented homework. In the second year, in addition to sketching, students get ideas about the theory of color, composition. However, students do not have credits for mastering these disciplines, which leads to a rather low interest in the subjects. In the subsequent period of study, mainly those related to engineering, computer design and modeling are taught. In order to encourage the desire for creative activity with a fairly small element of creativity in the curriculum, the university offers its students participation in reporting exhibitions, research projects, international cooperation and exchange programs.

It is possible to more fully identify and emphasize the specifics of Chinese design education in this aspect by comparing the data obtained with what other countries offer in the training of industrial designers, in particular in Russia. The People's Republic of China built its art education system based on the Russian-Soviet experience, however, since the late 1970s, it has been actively introducing technologies of Western design education. E.N. Koveshnikova identified and characterized a number of modern models of training future designers. She notes that during the preparation within the walls of universities, artistic and creative disciplines and technical ones can be combined mechanically; the former prevail, and the latter are considered as auxiliary; technical training prevails. The author especially notes, as the most optimal, the activities of design schools, which are common in Europe and the USA, striving to harmoniously combine the artistic and technical components, offering students participation in a variety of creative and research projects^[1]. The attraction of Chinese universities of almost all profiles, from artistic academic to polytechnic, to the introduction of interdisciplinary projects in the educational process, apparently reflects the influence of this model on them and the understanding of their role in the formation of skills of individual creative activity.

The analysis of various educational institutions in China, where future specialists in the field of industrial design are trained, showed that the content of educational programs is dominated by material related to the design of products. At the same time, artistic, graphic and technical components are considered as auxiliary. At the same time, training in the first one is conducted indirectly within the framework of creatively-oriented subjects, where for the implementation of a particular educational task it is necessary to create a sketch, sketches, that is, visualization of the idea. Technical disciplines are taught at the level of basic familiarity with existing technologies, materials or available software for design.

It should be noted that a common place for universities of artistic and humanitarian profiles in relation to teaching industrial design is that the system of mentoring and graduation at the studio is actively used in the educational process ^{[10, p. 149]}. It is a consequence of direct borrowing from the experience of Western art education. The advantage lies in the fact that students' practical activities take place in specially organized spaces, as a rule, art workshops and with the advisory assistance of teachers who are artists and designers. Teaching based on instructions and examples is a tradition for such universities, although it reduces the degree of creative independence. In addition, the content of the studio work is closely related to the lecture materials, expands and complements them.

It is noteworthy that such a model is not cultivated in universities with a technical profile, since they are focused not on the creative component, but on the interaction of students with technology, so practical work is focused either on computer equipment or on production ^{[11, p. 308]}. At the same time, interaction with teachers is mineralized. Students receive introductory information from them, which is developed and expanded by them independently, as well as various training tasks related to design, modeling, prototyping, testing, etc. In the "design – science – art" system, the creative element becomes secondary. The ability to solve problems by meeting people's needs comes to the fore.

Modular training is an association of interrelated courses into several training modules that is relevant for universities of all profiles, contributing to their integration. Chinese universities are also characterized by an open and flexible system of elective courses that promote the stimulation of students' independence and the integration of knowledge in interdisciplinary or professional fields. For example, at the Department of Industrial Design of Zhejiang University, the management and teaching staff strive to combine technology and creative design, digital technologies and media. As a result, the industrial and artistic components are connected with each other and with other fields, including cultural studies and psychology. As a result, students are taught the synthesis of functions and forms. However, students, as a rule, do not have basic artistic training. For this reason, during the first years of their bachelor's degree, in parallel with engineering, economics, and human sciences, they master a module related to artistic design and sketching, where they learn to look for harmony between proportions, textures and textures, lines, colors, etc. Such mainly practical work allows you to form the ability to innovative thinking as the most important factor in the implementation of design ideas.

The analysis of the activities of a number of leading universities in the training of specialists in the field under consideration has shown that educational institutions in China, when preparing future industrial designers, somehow find time in the educational process for fine arts classes. For the most part, they are rather superficial and introductory in nature. As a rule, in the first two courses, students perform drawings from nature and by presentation, then master the basics of composition and color theory ^{[12, p. 63]}. Such classes are considered not only as mastering the basic tools for fixing ideas and ideas, but also as a means of studying objects, the environment, space and other factors that can influence the creation of a design product. Moreover, drawing allows you to choose the most suitable methods of expression and style for yourself. Sketches made by students should not only focus on the integrity of the spatial position and morphological characteristics of things, but also on their structure, that is, emphasize "industriality". Artistic and creative subjects are often intertwined with humanities and technical disciplines, which allows students to achieve an understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of industrial design. It should also be noted that a graduate of an art university with a diploma in industrial design is likely to be engaged in the design of interior items, accessories, clothing and other things close to the principles of artistic design. Technical universities focus their graduates more on various mechanisms and equipment.

In general, the artistic and creative component in the curriculum of both artistic and non-artistic universities engaged in training in the field of industrial design is presented both as separate disciplines and as a component integrated into other subjects. Moreover, taking into account the fact that Chinese design is gradually moving from the design of external objects, buildings, machinery, equipment to complex design services, discussions about the primacy of forms, style or materials, structures and equipment cease to be so important. The learning process includes more and more new disciplines related to research on demand, market factors, product promotion, etc. In the near future, the issue of including a creative approach and appropriate tools in them will become a priority. The general trend boils down to the fact that the skill of traditional drawing is gradually turning into only one of the means of implementing the plan, giving way to computer graphics and modeling.