Jay Doblin Part I: A New Direction
Doblin was a pivotal figure in the history of human-centered design who led the Institute of Design through a period of profound transition.
“Jay was the inventor of strategic design, the only meaningful way to operate a design program.”
- Massimo Vignelli
Professor Moholy-Nagy And Friend Sweeney (1937-09)LIFE Photo Collection
The loss of a legend
Our story begins in 1946 with the death of László Moholy-Nagy, the celebrated Bauhaus émigré and founder of the Institute of Design (ID).
Young Jay DoblinInstitute of Design (ID) at Illinois Tech
An unlikely candidate
Working to find a replacement, ID’s board of directors created a short list of about 20 candidates. The list included Jay Doblin, a young, ambitious designer with little academic experience.
Doblin had spent over a decade working for Raymond Loewy, the French-born American designer and "father of industrial design." Doblin represented a major departure from the experimental pedagogical vision for the school espoused by Moholy.
“It would be a radical transformation. Today, you are fundamentally a great art school, one of the best in the world, but you were led by a genius, and so you have no place to go but down if you continue with your current strategy. On the other hand, there is no great functionalist design school, and you can swiftly be the best in the world.”
- Jay Doblin, presenting his vision for ID
Name Doblin Director of Institute of Design (1955-04-15) by Technology NewsInstitute of Design (ID) at Illinois Tech
Fierce opposition
Doblin’s vision provoked the ire of faculty and students, and the perceived pull toward professionalization and commercialization was met with fierce opposition. Moholy-Nagy's widow, Sibyl, was irate: “We will hire that crass commercial hack over my dead body.”
Doblin begins his tenure
Ultimately, however, Jay Doblin was the only candidate with both the credentials and the vision to lead ID.
When word of Doblin’s appointment reached the school, half of the tenured faculty members resigned in protest. In 1955, with almost all at ID unified in a shared hope for his failure, Doblin began his tenure.
Doblin quickly proved himself to be much more than the “crass commercial hack” his opponents feared. The new director thrust himself into reshaping ID’s curriculum.
Perspective: A New System for Designers by Jay DoblinInstitute of Design (ID) at Illinois Tech
The fundamentals of visual design
In his first book, Perspective, Doblin distilled drafting techniques perfected over the course of his industrial design career. The book reveals Doblin’s interest in the fundamental aptitudes of design education.
Building on Gestalt theory
Doblin’s approach relied heavily on Gestalt psychology, a theory of perception that focuses on composite patterns and configurations rather than individual components. Here, Doblin shows six ways to visually subdivide a square.
The ladder of abstraction
One of Doblin’s contributions to visual education was the adaptation of the ladder of abstraction, first developed by American linguist, S. I. Hayakawa.
In this example, taken from Doblin’s curriculum, Abraham Lincoln’s likeness is rendered in four different stylistic treatments—a photograph, a lithograph, a sketch, and computer-pixelated abstraction.
In Doblin's day, students demonstrated their skills through theoretical assignments, such as the one above, as well as through practical assessments, such as the design of desk accessories. Martin Thaler, a professor of product design at ID, still uses a variation on Doblin's desk accessories assignments to teach students essential design skills, including sketching, prototyping, rendering, and storytelling.
Jay Doblin with Car ChassisInstitute of Design (ID) at Illinois Tech
Challenging, yet whimsical assignments
Doblin tasked students with projects that were equal parts challenging and congenial. One such assignment asked students to build a car powered by any form of cheap, readily available fuel, whether water, air, or electricity.
The FlushmobileInstitute of Design (ID) at Illinois Tech
The Flushmobile
As recounted in a student newspaper: “The best one was nicknamed the ‘Flushmobile.’ [A student] got an old hot water heater filled with water and compressed air . . . so that the water squirted through a nozzle with a tiller to guide the propulsion system."
"It could get going roughly 30 miles an hour down State Street and would create this beautiful rooster tail . . . if the sun was shining, you’d get this gorgeous rainbow effect.”
Keep exploring Jay Doblin's impact on the Institute of Design in Part II.
