Cultivating The Appreciators Of Design

Design, in the modern society, not only grows and progresses with economy, but also deeply influences people's daily life. Only paying attention to produce designers while ignoring the art education of the general people to understand design is one of the important reasons why China's design level has lagged behind other countries for a long time. The appreciating ability of design has become part of the basic education that every social man must have, and it should be improved urgently. To serve the above purpose, the general education of design, provides formal or informal educational ways for everyone. Different from professional design education, GED is an all-pervading education, aiming to raise people's design quality. To cultivate people who understand design is a breakthrough for our current design education, and is also an important measure to create a harmonious design atmosphere and to promote economic progress.This paper tries to illustrate the concept of GED and analyze its importance and function. In addition, this paper lists the advantages of the GED in developed countries to show what lags behind in China and demonstrates that integrating GED into basic education is a critical task. The latter part of this paper proposes the idea of building a GED system in China through making good use of all sources to uplift the general population's understanding of design. Finally, this paper looks into the prospect of GED in China and points out that establishing a society-oriented GED is a task that has a long way to go.