Paul Atkinson
I am an industrial designer, design historian and design educator. I have worked in the design industry since the mid 1980s - and full time in design education since the mid 1990s. I am a Professor of Design and Design History at Sheffield Hallam University where I have worked since 2008. Prior to that I was Head of Professional Development and Subject Area Leader for 3D Design at the University of Huddersfield. I work on a number of research projects, supervise PhDs and teach on the MA Design and BA/BSc Product Design courses. My academic research covers a wide variety of subjects, all concerned in one way or another with the relationship between society and technology. The relationship between people and technological artefacts is explored through my writing on the design history of computers. The impact of the society-technology relationship on the design profession is explored through my writing on professional vs amateur design, including work on the history of DIY. The future impact of emerging technologies on the nature of design is explored through the practice-based research into Post Industrial Manufacturing.For a fuller description of articles and research projects please visit http://www.paul-atkinson-design.com/
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Papers by Paul Atkinson
While supporting open design in general, we argue that there are important instances where open design approaches may not be appropriate and that there will be a polarization between casual design activity (for cups, T-shirts and so on) and critical designs (medical equipment, very complex systems like mobile phones).
This case raises a number of questions for design historians. What is the definition of a product for design historical purposes? The status of products that actually existed as production items and of products that are ‘vapourware’—product proposals that did not materialize—is sometimes difficult to ascertain. This study explores the notion of products and non-products as subjects of design analyses and argues that even non-products can have significant agency as well as provide valuable insights into a period’s zeitgeist.
Yet, in the space of just a few years, the tablet computer and the notion of pen computing sank almost without trace. Following a series of disastrous product launches and the failure of a number of promising startup companies, the tablet computer was discredited as an unfulfilled promise. It no longer represented the future of mobile computing, but was instead derided as an expensive folly - an irrelevant sideline in the history of the computer.
This article traces the early development of pen computing, the appearance, proliferation and disappearance of the tablet computer, and explores possible reasons for the demise of this particular class of product.
As design practice became more specialized and the technology involved became more esoteric, amateur creative involvement in many disciplines became unattainable. Yet, emerging technologies today in fact offer the potential to reduce dependence on professional design, and afford access to advanced production techniques.
Describing a recent exhibition in which visitors to the gallery had the opportunity to not only create designs for products on screen, but have them actually manufactured and displayed as a part of the show, this paper describes the choices made by designers and craft makers developing such systems, and explores the tensions between professional and amateur creative activity. An exploration is also made of the issues raised for design education and the potential impact of systems that remove distinctions not only between different design disciplines but also between designer and user.
Manufacture, Parametric Modelling and Generative Design software on the design process. The initial research project within PIMS involved an industrial designer working with a CAD
programming expert in developing a software system that allowed the user to view various products or designed forms, which were continually randomly mutating in real time. The user could not affect the form itself or the mutation in any way, but could decide at which moment they wanted to ‘freeze’ the constantly changing form to create a unique, one-off
item. The user could then purchase the product, at which point the relevant stl files were created by the computer and exported to a rapid prototyping machine to be manufactured.
As this work progressed, various approaches were tried, including the random placement of a selection of predetermined elements within specified space envelopes. At this point, a second project was started involving a craft practitioner with the express notion of exploring the differences in approach between practitioners of different disciplines. This work has produced a system in which individual building block units are randomly assembled together within three-dimensional mesh forms that can be manipulated in various ways. When the process is complete the resulting object can be digitally manufactured. This paper will describe these different approaches to random generative design and discuss
the implications for the disciplines of design and craft, their interpretation and meaning raised by this research. The experience of using these systems potentially opens the
floodgates for amateur design and craft in ways previously unimagined. Developments such as these are clearly harbingers of a new era for design and craft and an example of the
reshaping of disciplines
create a new way of designing and making objects that blurs the boundaries between maker and consumer, craft
and industrial production. Automake’s product creation process in relation to traditional craft and industrial
processes. Automake was developed as a research project that aimed to investigate the potentials of using
generative systems to digitally design unique one-off works and produce them using a range of rapid
prototyping/manufacturing technologies and CNC equipment.
We have created form building software that is designed to be extremely user friendly and allow anyone to design
their own craft/design works. In addition we have developed a system for outputting construction files so that you
can send us your new designs to be physically produced. Visit the gallery page to see many examples of
completed works and how they were created. The context and process pages provide an overview and a
description of the underlying principles behind the project. The software page has form building software for you
to use, so try Automaking.
* describes the changing status of the computer, and how this has affected its physical appearance over time
* will appeal to a wide audience for the histories of design, technology and computing, as well as social and cultural history
The computer has in many respects become so common that it largely disappears from view. Originally a room-sized, esoteric, carefully-tended machine, breeding fear, awe and respect, over the years it has decreased in size, and with the rise of the personal computer it has now become a prosaic appliance little-more noted than a toaster or vacuum-cleaner. In Computer designer and design historian Paul Atkinson shows how changes in attitudes have been reflected in the physical design of the computer, and the ways in which the computer has been represented and promoted by manufacturers in advertising media. Informed by the office and sexual politics of the time, brochures for computers up until the 1980s clearly demonstrate the manufacturers’ views on the ways in which they would be used. By contrast, today’s pc is very pc – genderless, and largely status free.
Computer also considers the role of the computer as a cultural touchstone, as evidenced by its regular appearance in popular media: Dan Dare and the iconography of the space age for example, 2001’s HAL, James Bond’s bespoke gadgetry, Stars War and Trek, and a myriad more besides. Atkinson also explores the role of fashion in the design and promotion of computers, showing the relationship between popular culture and the design of the computer to be complex and interdependent.
Computer covers many issues ignored by other histories of computing, which have focused largely on technology and the economics involved in their production, but rarely on their physical design or their reception, consumption and representation. The book will appeal to professionals, students, and the lay reader in the fields of design, technology and computing, as well as social, cultural and economic history.
More details of this book, release date end Jun 2010, can be found by clicking the title of this entry.
Through a series of interviews with the inventor of the mouse and the designers and engineers who developed it, along with an analysis of the textual and visual promotional material of the time, this article explores the history of the mouse in the context of its original application, its subsequent improvements through work at Xerox and Apple, and its later wholesale acceptance by the personal computer industry. It is argued that this wholesale acceptance cannot be totally explained purely by the 'ease of use' provided by the computer mouse, and that particularly in the context of the workplace, there were other, less obvious but highly significant socio-political factors at play.
Using corporate promotional material from the National Archive for the History of Computing at the University of Manchester, and interviews with some of the designers and engineers involved in the creation of early portable computers, this work explores the development of the first real laptop computer, the ‘GRiD Compass’, in the context of its contemporaries. The consequent trajectory of laptop computer design is then traced to show how it has become a product which has a mixture of associated meanings to a wide range of consumers. In this way, the work explores the role of consumption in the development of digital technology.
Through the exploration of an archive of computer manufacturer’s catalogues, this article shows how previous, innovative forms of the computer informed by cultural references as diverse as science fiction, accepted gender roles and the discourse of status as displayed through objects, have been systematically replaced by the adoption of a ‘universal’ design informed only by the nondescript, self-referential world of office equipment.
The acceptance of this lack of innovation in the design of such a truly global, mass-produced, multi-purpose technological artefact has had an enormous effect on the conception, perception and consumption of the computer, and possibly of information technology itself. The very anonymity of the PC has created an attitude of indifference at odds with its potential.
randomness and physiological processes have an important role in the definition of form, we understand that
artifacts do not only need to attend to the needs and desires of their users, but also have the capacity to foster
emotional connections that arise from their nurturing and from an understanding of their morphogenesis,
from the proximity and time required for their growth and development.
These artifacts will only develop into final products if the system is understood and nourished by
their users. Their end results are singular and unique, with aesthetic qualities that arise from the understanding
of the artifacts’ growth constraints and the bonds that are created with them. The traditional quality canons
of mass produced goods are challenged, as the resulting artifacts will not get final shapes that are both
polished and free of imperfections, but that are inconstant, gnarly and sinuous. Other aspects, such as
production time and the dedication that the systems require from their user are motive to question the
connections that will arise between users and these artifacts.
We intend to contribute to the discussion about new production models that may be alternatives to
mass production in specific uses. With these systems we seek to catalyze greater empathy between objects
and their users, to understand which aesthetic qualities emerge and how their specific characteristics are
interpreted.
Geometrically simple experimental models with ants, bees and mycelia (the vegetative part of a
fungus, consisting of a network of fine white filaments), have been developed to better understand the
conjectural elements of these systems. In these, the matrices and the system are designed but the final results
are reliant on the choices of those who manipulate them and by the variables of the biological actuators. We
intend to make our findings available, allowing others to replicate our experiments in order to obtain a
broader understanding of reactions on the interaction with the systems and the perceived quality of the final
artifacts.
To better understand how individuals respond to this type of objects, we are developing small series of
artifacts, made with mycelia, in an embryonic stage. These will be distributed to users that will be asked to
nurture them into final objects; in this process each user will be asked to nurture his artifact into a final object,
where all options will be of their choice, from the sunlight exposure to the interruption of growth. Each user
will be asked to register the daily evolution of their artifact and to describe their feelings towards it.
O principal objectivo é a concepção de artefactos numa fase embrionária assim como os constrangimentos para o seu desenvolvimento. Ao definirmos as matrizes e os processos produtivos, pretendemos disponibilizar para o público em geral sistemas que reproduzam artefactos similares e replicáveis, porém singulares, consequências da intervenção dos actuadores biológicos.
Estes artefactos procuram reforçar as relações emocionais entre utilizador e objecto: os elos emocionais surgem da empatia criada pela compreensão da sua génese e do seu processo de produção, mas também pelo acompanhamento do seu desenvolvimento, desde a fase embrionária ate à interrupção do seu crescimento. Sendo o produto final o resultado de um processo generativo condicionado por actuadores biológicos no preenchimento das suas necessidades fisiológicas, não obteremos à partida uma forma final polida e livre de imperfeições, mas sim uma forma inconstante, sinuosa e rude.
Os artefactos serão o resultado da proximidade entre os vários intervenientes: o designer que concebe os sistemas, o utilizador que nutre e cultiva o sistema, e os actuadores que o executam. Esta compreensão aprofundada do artefacto e das relações que com ele são geradas pode resultar em novas qualidades estéticas.
While supporting open design in general, we argue that there are important instances where open design approaches may not be appropriate and that there will be a polarization between casual design activity (for cups, T-shirts and so on) and critical designs (medical equipment, very complex systems like mobile phones).
This case raises a number of questions for design historians. What is the definition of a product for design historical purposes? The status of products that actually existed as production items and of products that are ‘vapourware’—product proposals that did not materialize—is sometimes difficult to ascertain. This study explores the notion of products and non-products as subjects of design analyses and argues that even non-products can have significant agency as well as provide valuable insights into a period’s zeitgeist.
Yet, in the space of just a few years, the tablet computer and the notion of pen computing sank almost without trace. Following a series of disastrous product launches and the failure of a number of promising startup companies, the tablet computer was discredited as an unfulfilled promise. It no longer represented the future of mobile computing, but was instead derided as an expensive folly - an irrelevant sideline in the history of the computer.
This article traces the early development of pen computing, the appearance, proliferation and disappearance of the tablet computer, and explores possible reasons for the demise of this particular class of product.
As design practice became more specialized and the technology involved became more esoteric, amateur creative involvement in many disciplines became unattainable. Yet, emerging technologies today in fact offer the potential to reduce dependence on professional design, and afford access to advanced production techniques.
Describing a recent exhibition in which visitors to the gallery had the opportunity to not only create designs for products on screen, but have them actually manufactured and displayed as a part of the show, this paper describes the choices made by designers and craft makers developing such systems, and explores the tensions between professional and amateur creative activity. An exploration is also made of the issues raised for design education and the potential impact of systems that remove distinctions not only between different design disciplines but also between designer and user.
Manufacture, Parametric Modelling and Generative Design software on the design process. The initial research project within PIMS involved an industrial designer working with a CAD
programming expert in developing a software system that allowed the user to view various products or designed forms, which were continually randomly mutating in real time. The user could not affect the form itself or the mutation in any way, but could decide at which moment they wanted to ‘freeze’ the constantly changing form to create a unique, one-off
item. The user could then purchase the product, at which point the relevant stl files were created by the computer and exported to a rapid prototyping machine to be manufactured.
As this work progressed, various approaches were tried, including the random placement of a selection of predetermined elements within specified space envelopes. At this point, a second project was started involving a craft practitioner with the express notion of exploring the differences in approach between practitioners of different disciplines. This work has produced a system in which individual building block units are randomly assembled together within three-dimensional mesh forms that can be manipulated in various ways. When the process is complete the resulting object can be digitally manufactured. This paper will describe these different approaches to random generative design and discuss
the implications for the disciplines of design and craft, their interpretation and meaning raised by this research. The experience of using these systems potentially opens the
floodgates for amateur design and craft in ways previously unimagined. Developments such as these are clearly harbingers of a new era for design and craft and an example of the
reshaping of disciplines
create a new way of designing and making objects that blurs the boundaries between maker and consumer, craft
and industrial production. Automake’s product creation process in relation to traditional craft and industrial
processes. Automake was developed as a research project that aimed to investigate the potentials of using
generative systems to digitally design unique one-off works and produce them using a range of rapid
prototyping/manufacturing technologies and CNC equipment.
We have created form building software that is designed to be extremely user friendly and allow anyone to design
their own craft/design works. In addition we have developed a system for outputting construction files so that you
can send us your new designs to be physically produced. Visit the gallery page to see many examples of
completed works and how they were created. The context and process pages provide an overview and a
description of the underlying principles behind the project. The software page has form building software for you
to use, so try Automaking.
* describes the changing status of the computer, and how this has affected its physical appearance over time
* will appeal to a wide audience for the histories of design, technology and computing, as well as social and cultural history
The computer has in many respects become so common that it largely disappears from view. Originally a room-sized, esoteric, carefully-tended machine, breeding fear, awe and respect, over the years it has decreased in size, and with the rise of the personal computer it has now become a prosaic appliance little-more noted than a toaster or vacuum-cleaner. In Computer designer and design historian Paul Atkinson shows how changes in attitudes have been reflected in the physical design of the computer, and the ways in which the computer has been represented and promoted by manufacturers in advertising media. Informed by the office and sexual politics of the time, brochures for computers up until the 1980s clearly demonstrate the manufacturers’ views on the ways in which they would be used. By contrast, today’s pc is very pc – genderless, and largely status free.
Computer also considers the role of the computer as a cultural touchstone, as evidenced by its regular appearance in popular media: Dan Dare and the iconography of the space age for example, 2001’s HAL, James Bond’s bespoke gadgetry, Stars War and Trek, and a myriad more besides. Atkinson also explores the role of fashion in the design and promotion of computers, showing the relationship between popular culture and the design of the computer to be complex and interdependent.
Computer covers many issues ignored by other histories of computing, which have focused largely on technology and the economics involved in their production, but rarely on their physical design or their reception, consumption and representation. The book will appeal to professionals, students, and the lay reader in the fields of design, technology and computing, as well as social, cultural and economic history.
More details of this book, release date end Jun 2010, can be found by clicking the title of this entry.
Through a series of interviews with the inventor of the mouse and the designers and engineers who developed it, along with an analysis of the textual and visual promotional material of the time, this article explores the history of the mouse in the context of its original application, its subsequent improvements through work at Xerox and Apple, and its later wholesale acceptance by the personal computer industry. It is argued that this wholesale acceptance cannot be totally explained purely by the 'ease of use' provided by the computer mouse, and that particularly in the context of the workplace, there were other, less obvious but highly significant socio-political factors at play.
Using corporate promotional material from the National Archive for the History of Computing at the University of Manchester, and interviews with some of the designers and engineers involved in the creation of early portable computers, this work explores the development of the first real laptop computer, the ‘GRiD Compass’, in the context of its contemporaries. The consequent trajectory of laptop computer design is then traced to show how it has become a product which has a mixture of associated meanings to a wide range of consumers. In this way, the work explores the role of consumption in the development of digital technology.
Through the exploration of an archive of computer manufacturer’s catalogues, this article shows how previous, innovative forms of the computer informed by cultural references as diverse as science fiction, accepted gender roles and the discourse of status as displayed through objects, have been systematically replaced by the adoption of a ‘universal’ design informed only by the nondescript, self-referential world of office equipment.
The acceptance of this lack of innovation in the design of such a truly global, mass-produced, multi-purpose technological artefact has had an enormous effect on the conception, perception and consumption of the computer, and possibly of information technology itself. The very anonymity of the PC has created an attitude of indifference at odds with its potential.
randomness and physiological processes have an important role in the definition of form, we understand that
artifacts do not only need to attend to the needs and desires of their users, but also have the capacity to foster
emotional connections that arise from their nurturing and from an understanding of their morphogenesis,
from the proximity and time required for their growth and development.
These artifacts will only develop into final products if the system is understood and nourished by
their users. Their end results are singular and unique, with aesthetic qualities that arise from the understanding
of the artifacts’ growth constraints and the bonds that are created with them. The traditional quality canons
of mass produced goods are challenged, as the resulting artifacts will not get final shapes that are both
polished and free of imperfections, but that are inconstant, gnarly and sinuous. Other aspects, such as
production time and the dedication that the systems require from their user are motive to question the
connections that will arise between users and these artifacts.
We intend to contribute to the discussion about new production models that may be alternatives to
mass production in specific uses. With these systems we seek to catalyze greater empathy between objects
and their users, to understand which aesthetic qualities emerge and how their specific characteristics are
interpreted.
Geometrically simple experimental models with ants, bees and mycelia (the vegetative part of a
fungus, consisting of a network of fine white filaments), have been developed to better understand the
conjectural elements of these systems. In these, the matrices and the system are designed but the final results
are reliant on the choices of those who manipulate them and by the variables of the biological actuators. We
intend to make our findings available, allowing others to replicate our experiments in order to obtain a
broader understanding of reactions on the interaction with the systems and the perceived quality of the final
artifacts.
To better understand how individuals respond to this type of objects, we are developing small series of
artifacts, made with mycelia, in an embryonic stage. These will be distributed to users that will be asked to
nurture them into final objects; in this process each user will be asked to nurture his artifact into a final object,
where all options will be of their choice, from the sunlight exposure to the interruption of growth. Each user
will be asked to register the daily evolution of their artifact and to describe their feelings towards it.
O principal objectivo é a concepção de artefactos numa fase embrionária assim como os constrangimentos para o seu desenvolvimento. Ao definirmos as matrizes e os processos produtivos, pretendemos disponibilizar para o público em geral sistemas que reproduzam artefactos similares e replicáveis, porém singulares, consequências da intervenção dos actuadores biológicos.
Estes artefactos procuram reforçar as relações emocionais entre utilizador e objecto: os elos emocionais surgem da empatia criada pela compreensão da sua génese e do seu processo de produção, mas também pelo acompanhamento do seu desenvolvimento, desde a fase embrionária ate à interrupção do seu crescimento. Sendo o produto final o resultado de um processo generativo condicionado por actuadores biológicos no preenchimento das suas necessidades fisiológicas, não obteremos à partida uma forma final polida e livre de imperfeições, mas sim uma forma inconstante, sinuosa e rude.
Os artefactos serão o resultado da proximidade entre os vários intervenientes: o designer que concebe os sistemas, o utilizador que nutre e cultiva o sistema, e os actuadores que o executam. Esta compreensão aprofundada do artefacto e das relações que com ele são geradas pode resultar em novas qualidades estéticas.