Defining Design

1. Defining Design Andrea Peach Stage 1 Contextual & Critical Studies

2. Definitions of Design The meaning of the word “design” is much contested … as is … the definition of “designer”

3. Design The shorter Oxford English dictionary v. to mark out; to plan, purpose, intend … n. a plan conceived in the mind, of something to be done … n. adaptation of means to end …

4. “Disegno” Renaissance = drawing Alec Issigonis Morris Minor 1000 - 1962

5. 19th Century ’Design’replaced with ‘industrial art’ ‘decorative art’ or ‘applied art’ South Kensington Museum 1864

6. 20th Century‘Design’ re-established Norman Bel Geddes - ‘Futurama’ 1939 World’s Fair

7. Horatio Greenough American Sculptor 1739 Form follows function … Louis Sullivan American Architect 1896 Form and function are one …

8. David Pye The Nature of Design 1964 The art of design, which chooses that the things we use shall look as they do, has a very much wider and more sustained impact than any other art. Everyone is exposed to it all day long. Indeed, in towns there is hardly anything in sight except what has been designed. The man-made world, our environment, is a work of art, all of it, every bit of it. But not all good.’

9. David Pye The Nature of Design 1964 6 Requirements of Design: 1.It must correctly embody the essential principle of arrangement 2.The components of the device must be geometrically related 3.The components must be strong enough to transmit and resist process as the intended

10. David Pye The Nature of Design 1964 6 Requirements of Design: 4.Access must to provided (as relates to 2) 5.The cost of the result must be acceptable 6. The appearance must be acceptable

11. Victor Papanek Design for the Real World 1970 (1995) “Design is the conscious and intuitive effort to impose meaningful order”

12. Victor Papanek Design for the Real World 1970 (1995) All men are designers. All that we do, almost all the time, is design, for design is basic to all human activity. The planning and patterning of any act toward a desired, foreseeable end constitutes the design process. Any attempt to separate design to make it a thing by itself, works counter to the fact that design is the primary underlying matrix of life.

13. Design has become a range of goods, services, shaped by the intervention of ‘the designer’ no longer refers to ordinary objects

15. Pierre Bourdieu Distinction - A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste 1984 Cultural Capital: The ability to make distinctions between “cultivated” and “vulgar” taste.

18. Ron Arad Fantastic Plastic Elastic 1997 The ‘DESIGN OBJECT’

19. Penny Sparke Design Pioneers of the 20th Century - 1998

20. ‘What are increasingly produced are not material objects, but signs’

21. Camouflage sniper’s gloves - 1917

22. Definitions of Design Meanings of design are many and shift according to the context in which the word is used

23. Guy Julier The Culture of Design - 2000 Design is Interdisciplinary Designers work with: product managers, researchers, marketing specialists, advertising agents, public relations consultants Traditional demarcations between disciplines (graphic, product, interior) have blurred

24. Mike Press The Design Experience 2003 Designer as Cultural Intermediary: “A designer makes their own definition of what it is to be a designer and how to use distinctive skills, knowledge and thinking of design to find a place in the world. This is particularly true in today’s age of the knowledge economy.”

25. Definitions of Design The meaning of the word “design” is much contested … as is … the definition of “designer”

26. Hella Jongerius 2003 a conversation that might have taken place… Louise: How wide is the scope of design, actually? Does design count for something in society or does it operate only on the fringes of the cultural landscape?

27. Hella Jongerius 2003 Hella: It has to be about something. Commitment is crucial. Mass-production industry has been ruining the market with superfluous design products for far too long. I think designers have a role in this respect. We can do more than supply industry with original ideas; we could have a wider social responsibility

28. Hella Jongerius 2003 Hella: Designers have played a considerable part in creating the consumer society, so it would do us credit to instigate a new, more caring way of thinking about products.

29. Andrea Möller Droog Design ‘Bolle Box’ 1994

30. Marti Guixé Droog Design ‘Oranienbaum candy’ 1999

31. Don’t forget to download Worksheet 1 from: http://www.studioit.org.uk Scroll down to: Contextual and Critical Studies / Support Files CCS BA Stage 1 Critical Notebook Worksheet 1