The Future of Education

This paper examines the pedagogical potential of a stereotype printing workshop conducted within the Reprography course of the Design degree at the University of Aveiro. The study explores how hands-on, tactile engagement with traditional printing techniques can support the learning of contemporary technical content in the field of graphic production and encourage the development of more meaningful visual solutions. The workshop challenged students to design modules featuring abstract geometric motifs, subsequently produced in MDF, and to generate patterns through their combination. Students followed the entire production process, from graphic conception and preparation of final artwork to direct two-colour printing. This approach recreated the fundamental principles of letterpress printing using limited workshop resources. The research methodology combined participant observation, visual documentation, and informal conversations with participants [5]. The results suggest that this type of workshop-based practice consolidates specific technical knowledge and fosters creative exploration that departs from habitual digital assumptions. The study concludes that integrating workshop practices and artisanal printing technologies into higher design education contributes to strengthening practical know-how, technological understanding, and a critical relationship between traditional means and contemporary practices, even in academic contexts with limited resources. The relationship between manual know-how and sensory learning, as discussed in Hands-On Type [2] and The Touching Charm of Print [4], further supports the relevance of this pedagogical approach.

Keywords

stereotype printing, patterns, workshop education, graphic production, graphic design, know-how 

REFERENCES

[1] Castelo, C., & Gomes, A. S. (Eds.). (2022). Compêndio Cantiano. Barbara Says. 

[2] Dias, R., & Meira, S. (Eds.). (2023). Hands-On Type: Aprender com o Património Tipográfico. ESAD–Idea. 

[3] Frascara, J., Gardien, P., Noël, G., Rosenberg, D., Stappers, P., & Wilde, D. (2024). Towards strengthening methods in design education and practice. LearnXDesign 2023. https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2024.029

[4] Ludovico, A. (2022). The touching charm of print. In Can you feel it? Effectuating tactility and print in the contemporary (pp. 69–73). Set Margins. 

[5] Pink, S. (2015). Doing sensory ethnography (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications. 

[6] Shaoqiang, W. (2017). Shapes: Geometric forms in graphic design. Promopress.