ABSTRACT
Michael Glickman, who wrote the normally frivolous ‘Ironic Column’ in Designers’ Journal, took a more serious tone in July 1986 as he questioned the quality of Britain’s design education. He declared himself ‘dispirited’ that excellence appeared to be rare, and called for some courses to be shut down. Glickman’s piece had been provoked by an advertisement for a proposed ‘school of communication arts’ for self-funding students, endorsed by leading design practices, many of whom were primarily involved in interior design. At the beginning of the 1990s, numbers of applicants for interior courses were still modest. Two factors would change that. Lay awareness of interior design had been growing since the early 1980s as a flotilla of magazines, principally World of Interiors and Elle Decoration, were launched. The impact of Changing Rooms and its clones was to swell the numbers of applicants to interior design courses.
