Design studies can refer to any design-oriented studies but is more formally an academic discipline or field of study that pursues, through both theoretical and practical modes of inquiry, a critical understanding of design practice and its effects in society.
Design studies encompasses the study of both the internal practices of design and the external effects that design activity has on society, culture and the environment. Susan Yelavich explained design studies as embracing "two broad perspectives—one that focuses inward on the nature of design and one that looks outward to the circumstances that shape it, and conversely, the circumstances design changes, intentionally or not". [1] This dual aspect is reflected in the complementary orientations of the two leading journals in the field. Design Studies (established 1979) is "the interdisciplinary journal of design research" and is "focused on developing understanding of design processes". Design Issues (established 1984) "examines design history, theory, and criticism" and "provokes inquiry into the cultural and intellectual issues surrounding design".
An interdisciplinary field, design studies includes many scholarship paradigms and uses an evolving set of methodologies and theories drawn from key thinkers from within the field itself. The field has connections with the humanities, the social sciences and the sciences, but many scholars regard design itself as a distinct discipline. [2]
Design studies scholars recognize that design, as a practice, is only one facet of much larger circumstances. They examine and question the role of design in shaping past and present personal and cultural values, especially in light of how they shape the future.
The extensive scope of design studies is conveyed in two collected sets of readings: Design Studies: A Reader (2009) [3] is a compilation of extracts from classic writings that laid the foundations of the field, and The Routledge Companion to Design Studies (2016) [4] contains newer writings over a wide range of topics such as gender and sexuality, consumerism and responsibility, globalization and post-colonialism.
The origins of design studies lie in the rapid expansion of issues and topics around design since the 1960s, including its role as an academic discipline, its relationships with technological and social change, and its cultural and environmental impacts. [5] As a field of studies it developed more specifically in the development of interaction between design history and design research. Debates about the role of design history and the nature of design research from the 1970s and 80s were brought together in 1992 when Victor Margolin argued in the journal Design Studies for the incorporation of design history into design research, in a combined approach to the study of design. Margolin noted the "dynamic crossings of intellectual boundaries" when considering developments in both fields at the time, and defined design studies as "that field of inquiry which addresses questions of how we make and use products in our daily lives and how we have done so in the past". [6]
Margolin's argument triggered counterarguments and other suggestions about what constitutes design history and how to characterize the study of design as something more than a professional practice. In a reply to Margolin in the Journal of Design History in 1993, Adrian Forty argued that design history had consistently performed a vital role in examining questions around quality in design and was already embracing new lines of thought, for example from cultural studies and anthropology. [7] The growing debate led to a special issue of the journal Design Issues in 1995 which focused attention on "some of the controversies and problems that surround the seemingly simple task of telling the history of design". [8]
A shift from design history towards design studies continued to develop as the overlapping research methods and approaches to the study of design began to lead to broader questions of meaning, authority and power. The realization came that design history is only "but one component of what goes on in studying design, and to claim that all that is going on now could use the umbrella term 'design history' is not tenable". [9]
Design studies inquires about the meanings and consequences of design. It studies the influence of designers and the effects design has on citizens and the environment. [3] Victor Margolin distinguishes a degree in design from a degree in design studies by saying that "the former is about producing design, while the latter is about reflecting on design as it has been practiced, is currently practiced, and how it might be practiced". [22]
Design studies urges a rethinking of design as a process, as a practice, and as a generator or products and systems that gives lives meaning and is imbricated in our economic and political systems. The study of design thinking explores the complexities inherent in the task of thinking about design. [3] Design studies is also concerned with the relationship between design and gender, design and race, and design and culture. It studies design as ethics, its role in sustainability (social and environmental), and the nature of agency in design's construction the artificial.
Design has the capacity of structuring life in certain ways and thus design should result in greater good for individuals and society but it doesn't always do so. Ethics deals with how our actions affect others and should affect others. Design studies sees ethics as central to design. [3] Tony Fry, a leading figure in design studies, said that it is widely recognized that design is an ethical process but remains underdeveloped and marginal within design education.[ citation needed ]
Clive Dilnot's essay "Ethics in Design: Ten Questions" explores the relationship between design and ethics and why we need ethics in design. Dilnot discussed the ability of the designer to address the public as citizens and not as consumers, and about infusing "humane intelligence" into the made environment. [3]
Clive Dilnot wrote that the artificial is by no means confined to technology. Today, it is combination of technical systems, the symbolic realm, including mind and the realm of human transformations and transmutations of nature. He gave the example of a genetically modified tomato that is neither purely natural nor purely artificial. It belongs rather to the extended realms of living things that are, as human beings ourselves are, a hybrid between these conditions. [23]
Design studies scholars also reference sociologist Bruno Latour when investigating the dynamics of the artificial. Latour's concept of actor–network theory (ANT) portrays the social as an interdependent network of human individual actors and non-human, non-individual entities called actants. [24]
Design plays a constitutive role in everyday life. The things people see and read, the objects they use, and the places they inhabit are all designed. These products (all artificial because they are made by people) constitute an increasingly large part of the world. The built environment is the physical infrastructure that enables behavior, activity, routines, habits, and rituals, which affect our agency. Jamer Hunt defined the built environment as the combination of all design work. [25]
There have been protests that the field of design studies is not sufficiently "geared towards delivering the kinds of knowledge and understanding that are adequate to addressing the systemic problems that arise from the coloniality of power". [26] Moves towards decolonising design entail changing design discourse from within by challenging and critiquing the dominant status quo from spaces where marginal voices can be heard, by educating designers about the politics of what they do and create, and by posing alternatives to current (colonial) design practices, rooted in the contexts and histories of the Global South rather than just the North. [27]
The argument is that design history and design research tend to have the strongest influences from the triad of Western Europe, North America, and Japan. The effect tends to be in line with the notion that history is written by the victors and thus design history is written by the economically powerful. Denise Whitehouse said, "While many countries produce local histories of design, the output is uneven and often driven by nationalist and trade agendas", although some academic groups such as the Japanese Design History Forum and the International Committee for Design History and Studies (ICDHS) attempt to draw together both western and non-western, post-communist, postcolonial, Asian, and Southern Hemisphere approaches, "to remap the scope and narrative concerns of design history". [3] : 54–63 A special issue of the Design and Culture journal (Volume 10, Issue 1, 2018) was published on the topic of decolonizing design. [28]
The following are some of the research methods that may be used in design studies.
This form of research requires the scholar to partake in the use of, or observe others use, a designed object or system. Design ethnography has become a common tool where design is observed as a social practice. It describes a process in which a researcher will partake in traditional observant style ethnography, and observe potential users complete activities that can inform design opportunities and solutions. [29] Other ethnographic techniques used by design studies scholars would fall more in line with anthropologists usage of the method. These techniques are observant and participant ethnography. The observant style requires the scholar to observe in an unobtrusive manner. Observations are recorded and further analyzed. The participant style requires the scholar to partake in the activities with their subject. This tactic enables the scholar to record what they see, but also what they themselves experience.
Design ethnography emerged out of a movement in the late 1980s by organizations such as Xerox/PARC (Palo Alto Research Center], Institute for Research on Learning and Jay Doblin & Associates toward social science approaches in their product design and development efforts. [30] [31] In the 1990s, the research and design consultancy E-Lab (founded by former Doblin employees) took this approach further, pioneering a multidisciplinary methodology guided by anthropology and ethnography. [30] [32] [31] [33] E-Lab challenged conventional market research by prioritizing real-world user experiences and behaviors uncovered through fieldwork, then analyzing the data for patterns organized by explanatory frameworks. [34] [35] [30]
While it remains a broader theory or concept, actor-network theory can be used by design studies scholars as a research framework. When using this method, scholars will assess a designed object and consider the physical and nonphysical interactions which revolve around the object. The scholar will analyze what the object's impact is on psychological, societal, economical, and political worlds. This widened viewpoint allows the researcher to explore and map out the objects many interactions, identify its role within the network, and in what ways it is connected to stakeholders. [36]
Design studies scholars may also analyze or research a designed object or system by studying it in terms of representations and their various meanings. Semiotics studies acts of communication between the designer, the thing, and the user or users. This concept branches out into a rhetorical analysis of the designed thing. Scholars such as Richard Buchanan argue that design can be studied in such a way due to the existence of a design argument. [37] The design argument is made up by the designer, the user, and the applicability to "practical life". [37] The scholar would pull these segments apart and thoroughly analyze each component and their interactions. Discourse analysis and Foucauldian discourse analysis can be adopted by the design studies scholar to further explore the above components. A Foucauldian approach specifically will analyze the power structures put in place, manipulated by, or used within a designed thing or object. This process can be particularly useful when the scholar intends to understand if the designed thing has agency or enables others to have agency.
The Design Research Society (DRS) is a learned society committed to promoting and developing design research. It is the longest established, multi-disciplinary worldwide society for the design research community, founded in the UK in 1966. The purpose of the DRS is to promote "the study of and research into the process of designing in all its many fields". [38]
The Design History Society is an organization that promotes the study of global design histories, and brings together and supports all those engaged in the subject—students, researchers, educators, designers, designer-makers, critics, and curators. The Society aims to play an important role in shaping an inclusive design history. [39]
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavior, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. The term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the biological development of humans.
A design is the concept of or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word, design, refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, although it is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something – its design. The verb to design expresses the process of developing a design. In some cases, the direct construction of an object without an explicit prior plan may also be considered to be a design. A design is expected to have a purpose within a certain context, usually having to satisfy certain goals and constraints and to take into account aesthetic, functional, economic, environmental, or socio-political considerations. Traditional examples of designs include architectural and engineering drawings, circuit diagrams, sewing patterns, and less tangible artefacts such as business process models.
Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining the behavior of the participants in a given social situation and understanding the group members' own interpretation of such behavior.
Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advance of the manufacture or production of the product. Industrial manufacture consists of predetermined, standardized and repeated, often automated, acts of replication, while craft-based design is a process or approach in which the form of the product is determined personally by the product's creator largely concurrent with the act of its production.
An academic discipline or field of study is a branch of knowledge, taught and researched as part of higher education. A scholar's discipline is commonly defined by the university faculties and learned societies to which they belong and the academic journals in which they publish research.
Actor–network theory (ANT) is a theoretical and methodological approach to social theory where everything in the social and natural worlds exists in constantly shifting networks of relationships. It posits that nothing exists outside those relationships. All the factors involved in a social situation are on the same level, and thus there are no external social forces beyond what and how the network participants interact at present. Thus, objects, ideas, processes, and any other relevant factors are seen as just as important in creating social situations as humans.
Design research was originally constituted as primarily concerned with ways of supporting and improving the process of design, developing from work in design methods. The concept has been expanded to include research embedded within the process of design and research-based design practice, research into the cognitive and communal processes of designing, and extending into wider aspects of socio-political, ethical and environmental contexts of design. It retains a sense of generality, recognising design as a creative act common to many fields, and aimed at understanding design processes and practices quite broadly.
Design methods are procedures, techniques, aids, or tools for designing. They offer a number of different kinds of activities that a designer might use within an overall design process. Conventional procedures of design, such as drawing, can be regarded as design methods, but since the 1950s new procedures have been developed that are more usually grouped under the name of "design methods". What design methods have in common is that they "are attempts to make public the hitherto private thinking of designers; to externalise the design process".
Social design is the application of design methodologies in order to tackle complex human issues, placing the social issues as the priority. Historically social design has been mindful of the designer's role and responsibility in society, and of the use of design processes to bring about social change. Social design as a discipline has been practiced primarily in two different models, as either the application of the human-centered design methodology in the social sector or governmental sector, or sometimes is synonymously practiced by designers who venture into social entrepreneurship.
Design history is the study of objects of design in their historical and stylistic contexts. With a broad definition, the contexts of design history include the social, the cultural, the economic, the political, the technical and the aesthetic. Design history has as its objects of study all designed objects including those of architecture, fashion, crafts, interiors, textiles, graphic design, industrial design and product design. Design theorists revamp historical techniques and they use these aspects to create more sophisticated techniques of design. It acts as a tool to better future aspects of design.
Design theory is a subfield of design research concerned with various theoretical approaches towards understanding and delineating design principles, design knowledge, and design practice.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to anthropology:
Ecological design or ecodesign is an approach to designing products and services that gives special consideration to the environmental impacts of a product over its entire lifecycle. Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan define it as "any form of design that minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes." Ecological design can also be defined as the process of integrating environmental considerations into design and development with the aim of reducing environmental impacts of products through their life cycle.
Penelope Anne "Penny" Sparke is a British writer and academic specialising in the history of design. She has been Professor of Design History at Kingston University, London, since 1999, where she is also Director of the Modern Interiors Research Centre.
Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In the United States, social anthropology is commonly subsumed within cultural anthropology or sociocultural anthropology.
Mirko Tobias Schäfer is a media scholar at Utrecht University. He is an Associate Professor for AI, Data & Society at the Department for Information & Computing Sciences and Sciences Lead of the Data School.
Victor Margolin (1941–2019) was an American design historian, researcher and educator. He was a Professor of design history at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where he taught from 1982 until 2006. Margolin published widely and was the founding editor and co-editor of the academic design journal, Design Issues. A major work was his comprehensive World History of Design.
John Heskett was a British writer and lecturer on the economic, political, cultural and human value of industrial design. Heskett taught primary in the fields of design history and design thinking, and was a professor at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology (1989–2004) and the School of Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2004–11), where he became the acting dean (2011–12). He was also a visiting professor at various universities in Turkey, Japan, Chile, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland.
Lorraine Patricia Gamman is professor of design at the Design Against Crime Research Centre at Central Saint Martins in the University of the Arts, London which she founded in 1999.
Cheryl Buckley is a British design historian whose research has focused on feminist approaches to design history. She has published on British ceramic design and fashion. Her works include the influential article "Made in Patriarchy: Toward a Feminist Analysis of Women and Design" (1986) and the books Potters and Paintresses (1990) and Designing Modern Britain (2007). She was professor of fashion and design history at the University of Brighton from 2013-2021, and was previously professor of design history at Northumbria University. In 2021, she was made Professor Emerita at the University of Brighton.
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