Industrialisation and Social Innovation: Design in a New Context

Many years ago, Viktor Papanek urgently called for a radical revision of the design profession, based on an exploration of new territories outside the market oriented logic. For many years Papnek’s call was ignored, but the problems he emphasised became more and more evident. Globalisation requires industrial production to adopt complex strategies that mix action at the global and the local level. While industrial production is globalising, local needs are becoming more and more complex, generating demand patterns and opportunities, often ignored by the mainstream market-oriented perspective. Papanek’s proposal was revived some years ago, with the Common Ground conference. Starting from this event, other contributions were proposed that revised the relationship between designers and their main clients and found new methodological approaches. This debate represents the theoretical and logical framework for this paper. An investigation is proposed, beyond the traditional links between...

Proceedings from the 7th Nordcode seminar, 2008

It is argued that we live in a post-industrial society with a transition from the production of goods to services. It is also said we live in a knowledge economy where creation, distribution, use and manipulation of information are significant activities (Dahlbom, 2003). The word industrial has a connotation of mass-production of products and, logically also industrial design has this connotation. There are two issues related to this that guided our research on the design industry. One was whether the definition and understanding of industrial design had changed in the transition of the post-industrial society. Another was whether the change of the market and the industrial clients had an impact on the organization and development of the industrial design consultancies (IDC). The meaning of the term design is much contested. It can be referred to the actual problemsolving activity and the ability to plan, sketch, and model (Jones, 1981; Lawson, 1998). It can also refer to the outcome of the design process that is the product. The lowest common denominator between design and industrial is then the actual product. The two terms would then together imply the activity to plan, sketch and model products. The terms industrial and design would in the change towards a post-industrial society and knowledge economy be paradoxes and the role of the industrial designer would slowly disperse. As we know that the term industrial design is still going strong, both in education and business there could still be a new definition and content of the concept industrial design. Creativity, by its very nature, creates categories or rearranges established ones (Waymire et al, 1995). The role of designers could in this sense promote strategic thinking or improve the interaction between executives and the future. Industrial designers have always been knowledge workers and consequently would fit perfectly in the knowledge economy. In the industrial paradigm the knowledge was “frozen” in a product and the actual name of the discipline – industrial design – implies a discipline that belongs in the past. At the same time paradoxically the term design has a focus on the future. The competition in the knowledge economy is increasing and boarders between disciplines are getting less distinct.

Design Issues, 2004

This Design Issues symposium is a continuation of efforts to enrich design studies by selectively reaching out to scholarship in related fields. The contributors to this issue are from the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies (STS). They include an anthropologist, a political scientist, and an interdisciplinary set of STS graduate students and recent Ph.D.s with backgrounds in engineering and design, as well as in the humanities and social sciences. This volume emerges from a project at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to develop "An STS Focus on Design," funded by the National Science Foundation's Science and Technology Studies program. Project participants seek to foster a dialogue with the design studies community on design as a public activity engaging professional designers with many other social actors and institutions. In this introduction, we provide an overview of how some STS scholars think about the challenges of design, and we briefly summarize the articles in this symposium. However, we begin by discussing the conceptual foundation for the work, distinguishing between what we call "proximate designers" and "design by society." 2 Professional designers most immediately shape design by their decisions at the drawing board, of course, but they work within contexts and incentive structures shaped largely by others. In proposing that design studies pay increased attention to design by society, we are attempting to join with Victor Papanek, Nigel Whiteley, Joan Rothschild, Richard Buchanan, Victor Margolin, William McDonough, and others who think systematically about how design can help shape a commendable civilization. 3 Proximate Designers and Design by Society Our starting point is the fact that design involves both professional designers as well as what might be termed "design by society." We refer to the persons often studied in this journal as proximate designers, including product, industrial, graphics, and urban designers and architects who exercise direct control over the details of design. 4 Proximate designers work under constraints and incentives established via complex social arrangements involving persons often far removed from the drawing board. This happens partly because 1 This symposium is based on papers originally written for the Design Seminar at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, funded by the National Science Foundation under grant B10332 for "An STS Focus on Design." We thank John Schumacher (in memoriam), Linnda Caporael, Judith Gregory, Langdon Winner, and our fellow participants in the Design Seminar for their contributions to this collaboration. 2 Design by society is intended as a corollary to Nigel Whiteley's Design For Society (London: Reaktion Books, 1992), recalling as well the democratic theme, "Of, by, and for the people." 3 Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change, 2nd ed.

International Journal of Advance Study and Research Work, 2020

Design and designer's role have changed. It is now not only about adding aesthetic value and functionality to a product. The human centric approach of design generates questions of how design education can adapt and modify to magnify the role of a designer as a social leader and be responsible towards socially conscious design. Social innovation does involve the convergence of human involvement with contemporary society for a significant change. Hence, the role and scope of design is increased towards creating an impact on society and culture. Through the study of secondary data in the form of case studies, this paper attempts to identify how through design we can have innovative solutions towards social issues.

2009

Design, as an area of knowledge, is subject to changes that affect it through different approaches, both theoretical and practical; its include matters related with responsibility, environment, social worries, and things alike. Commensurately, such contemporary aspects open room for social initiatives. This scenario begins to be looked at, especially in creative communities. Such proposal for a systemic approach of design is seen as a way to involve the stakeholders in the processes of investigation and of social innovation, which can decisively contribute for the development of traditional local communities. As a theoretical basis for the research, this paper outlines some especial features of design and social innovation, in their particular and in their complementary aspects, as well as in the way they relate with each other.

2016

The following publication is a collection of texts on the contemporary meaning of design, the changing in roles of designers and cultural and social expectations described in the broad cognitive perspective. Although this topic raised in the field of sociology quite recently, the complexity of the phenomenon, its manifestations, forms and ways of preventing provoked the debate on the field. Hence, presented volume is prepared by the researchers, whose interests have been provoked by needs of sociological inclusion in the debate in the area dominated so far by theorists and practitioners from the field of art and related disciplines. Through the publication of this book we would like to explore the area associated with the use and perception of design in a broader social context and try to find the answers for few questions: • What is the role or roles for design in modern society? • How design can be use in solving problems connected with social and cultural changes? • What are the examples of the application of design in processes of social and cultural change? • What are the boundaries of socially responsible design? • How to involve society in the process of socially responsible design? The debate about defining the modern design process, the social roles of designers and their participation in engaging and listening the final recipients at individual and collective level were discussed during the 12th Conference of the European Sociological Association in Prague, (Czech Republic, 25–28 August 2015), where editors of this book had the unique opportunity to chair the session Design in use – the application of design in global processes of social and cultural change. The discussion initiated during this meeting provoked us to make efforts to issue this volume in order to encourage sociological association to open for a wider interdisciplinary discussion in this area.

John Heskett once said that the history of design can be seen as a process of layering. As designers continually add new dimensions to the discipline by adapting and responding to changing economic, social and environmental circumstances, so too must education. The aim of this paper is not to suggest how design education should change, but inform the design community where designers have been taking design today. This paper will profile current PhD research on contemporary roles of the designer as identified in the Dott 07 (Designs of the Time) initiative. It will also propose that we can identify many other roles of the designer, through mapping a current movement known as designing for social good.

Architectural Design, 2013

DS 95: Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE 2019), University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. 12th -13th September 2019, 2019

The practice of Industrial Design is typically defined as the design of products for mass manufacture. Whilst this is a traditional endeavour for the Industrial Designer, such a narrow definition does not accurately represent the new innovation landscapes in which contemporary practice is centred. Increasingly Industrial Designers are designing experiences and services that are mediated by tangible, but often non-physical, products. Sitting behind this are agendas for design that lie outside of the manufacturing concern such as, designing for emotion, for social impact, for improved health and wellbeing, or for pathways towards less unsustainable futures. In this work Industrial Designers draw on a range of methods and discourses that further distance them from manufacturing concerns including inclusive design, design for sustainability, and interaction and data-driven design. Traditional technical and pragmatic orientations are often set aside so that designer can innovate or deal with complexity through speculative and propositional design thinking. Of importance in this shift is the near universal mindset that design decisions ought not impart a negative impact on the environment or society, through an approach to practice that strives to make positive contributions to societal wellbeing. This paper examines the contestable meanings of Industrial Design defined by professional associations and challenged by designers and design theorists. It explores transitions of practice and the implications of such messaging and counter-messaging on the ways Industrial Design education can be understood; where continuously redefining Industrial Design is itself critical to any pedagogy for future practice.