For many students and young designers alike, the impulse is to try and strive for immediate perfection. Our experience at FUEL has shown that true breakthroughs often accompany a willingness to fail.
“It was pretty inspiring seeing these students work, discover, and then celebrate their accomplishments,” said Rhiannon. “When they failed, the teacher was always there to ask them questions and push them a little bit farther to help them learn how to progress in their project.”
Another important step in the development of a designer is learning to be intentional with your decisions, and that meant having the confidence to have a thoughtful answer to a simple, one-word question.
“It was really cool to push them to chase the question ‘Why?’” said Rachel. “Why was their product built a particular way? Why was that important? Why could they market that feature? They had already thought about needs or problems they could address, and then we encouraged them to use their ‘why’ findings to serve as the foundation of their products and campaigns.”While the design process creates structure on which to build thinking, the classes at RCCBA are set up with flexibility in mind.