ABSTRACT
Throughout the West, there are a number of colleges and universities which have courses specializing in transport design. Typical examples include the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, the College for Creative Studies in Detroit (both in the US), the Hochschule Pforzheim University in Germany, the Royal College of Art in London and Coventry University (both in the UK). Graduates from these courses populate the international community of transport design as directors of design, CEOs, vice presidents, studio directors, design project managers at companies such as Land Rover, Renault, BMW, Mercedes Benz and Jaguar. In doing so, they have joined not only a community that is international in scope but also a community of practice, which encompasses professional designers working in the industry, all of whom actively negotiate with and participate in a mutually understood discourse. This discourse is both explicit and, very often, tacit, but to the transport design community the signs of membership are unmistakable.
