Two fundamental shifts are currently evident in design. Firstly, a growing call to integrate research and praxis is evident. Secondly, a call to move fashion design praxis to more relevant and value-adding environmental sustainable and user-centred design approaches is emerging. As such, fashion education should align itself to such shifts.

This paper will explore the notion of ethics in the built environment, and professional accountability, topics which are generally sidelined or given little direct consideration in teaching and practice. However, this status quo is increasingly being questioned. Built environment educators and practitioners need now to develop the intellectual and skill resources to address new questions, formulate a position, and set guidelines to be able to incorporate and make these ‘measurable’ in the performance of educators and practitioners, and for achieving a level of accountability.

The second year Design Studies learning unit “Design and the Construction of Class Distinction” (BA Communication Design, Industrial Design, University of Johannesburg) introduces students to definitions of social class in terms of capitalism (Olin-Wright 2008, Goldthorpe 1980, Crompton 1998, 2003) as well as to Bourdieusian concepts of habitus, field and capital (Bourdieu 1989; Weininger 2005, Bennett, et al 2010; Jenkins 2003; Grenfell 2003).

This paper will discuss selected issues of transformation and Graphic Design education at the Department of Graphic Design, Durban University of Technology (DUT), and draw preliminary conclusions from recent research. It will begin by discussing the context in which both transformation and Graphic Design education take place at this institution, particularly with regard to the pressures of Globalisation.

It will then discuss certain problems of the relationship between Graphic Design and Indigenous Knowledge, and suggest some methodologies derived from recent projects in our department, as possible ways forward. The Indigenous Knowledge of the amaZulu people is the source consulted in this case.