Abstract

Culture plays a very important role in influencing the decisions designers make in arriving at a solution to a given problem. Culture has many dimensions, those that are inherited and specific to a nation or region and those that are carefully crafted and unique to organisations that innovate through design. Both of these have an impact on the process designers employ in arriving at the final outcome, with the latter being more powerful in fostering design innovations. Models of design education currently in practice in Thailand have borrowed heavily from the West and have not been very effective in cultivating a culture of innovation. It is imperative to develop new models of education that are required to navigate the future and reimagine the skills that are necessary to suit the Thai context.