1. Introducing critical design
Highlight (yellow) - Page 1 · Location 194
In critical design practice , designers reject a role for industrial design that is limited to the production of objects
Highlight (yellow) - Page 2 · Location 200
Guided by this rationale , critical design practice aims to challenge the current state of industrial design .
Highlight (pink) - Page 2 · Location 217
Dunne and Raby , Jurgen Bey , and Martí Guixé –
Highlight (pink) - Page 2 · Location 219
Ryan Gander , Bless , Dexter Sinister , Alicia Framis , Martino Gamper , Tobias Rehberger , Superflux , and Chosil Kil and brought these designers into the discourse surrounding the practice .
Highlight (pink) - Page 3 · Location 227
The Republic of Salivation ( 2010 ) by Michael Burton and Michiko Nitta . The
Highlight (yellow) - Challenging colloquialism: The problem with critical design > Page 4 · Location 260
these designs are less about problem solving and more about problem finding within disciplinary and societal discourse .
Highlight (yellow) - Challenging colloquialism: The problem with critical design > Page 5 · Location 264
Dunne and Raby themselves express caution when using ‘ critical design ’ as a label :
Highlight (yellow) - What’s so critical about critical design practice > Page 7 · Location 307
a somewhat limited discourse has focused specifically on the effects of design from within the design profession , a claim supported by Miller’s dismay of product design :
Highlight (yellow) - What’s so critical about critical design practice > Page 7 · Location 324
For example , when attending design research colloquiums and symposiums that focus on critical design practice , the discussion with the audience will inevitably result in the question being asked ‘ isn’t it just art ? ’ .
Note - What’s so critical about critical design practice > Page 7 · Location 324
tricky
Highlight (yellow) - Why study critical design? > Page 8 · Location 338
The design profession needs to mature and find ways of operating outside the tight constraints of servicing industry . At its worst product design simply reinforces global capitalist values . Design needs to see this for what it is , just one possibility and to develop alternative roles for itself . It needs to establish an intellectual stance of its own , or the design profession is destined to lose all intellectual credibility and viewed simply as an agent of capitalism . ( Dunne and Raby 2001 , 59 )
Highlight (yellow) - Why study critical design? > Page 9 · Location 348
So there are already utterances of critical practice being little more than ‘ design for design’s sake ’ , ‘ design for designers ’ , or perhaps more appropriately ‘ design for critical designers ’ . 3
Highlight (yellow) - Why study critical design? > Page 9 · Location 358
Fields such as participatory design , socially responsible design , and co - design have emerged in parallel to critical design practice . These modes reflect upon the relationship between design and the communities that are being designed for , and , or with . They operate beyond conditions set by fiscal gain or technological development . They are established as intellectual and politically motivated practices , informing policy and used to address complex societal concerns . In their deviation from focusing on the production of objects , they reflect instead a move towards the designer acting as the facilitator for large groups of people ; they imply a critique of mainstream design , or at least challenge common perceptions of the designer’s role . They are assumed progressive within disciplinary discourse . They have been absorbed into the disciplinary orthodoxy through the shared efforts of theorists , commentators , and practitioners . 4
Note - Why study critical design? > Page 9 · Location 358
maria
Highlight (pink) - Researching critical design practice > Page 10 · Location 382
Bonsiepe
Note - Researching critical design practice > Page 10 · Location 382
this is a desinger
Highlight (yellow) - ‘Critical’ in critical design practice > Page 11 · Location 393
As a design practice , critical design is perhaps better understood in relation to recent design approaches that expand design methods , tactics , and strategies beyond generating consumer products . It is informed by a long history of creative practice , including Dada and Situationism . Such approaches first developed in Art where artists integrated playful forms of critique through the appropriation of everyday objects and the celebration and subversion of quotidian conditions . Informed by these traditions , critical design practice has drawn on tactics associated with art to orient a subversion of design norms . Informed by conceptual art , critical design
Highlight (yellow) - ‘Critical’ in critical design practice > Page 11 · Location 404
Chapter 4 will explore how attempts to make distinctions between art and critical design are misguided . Critical design and art may or may not overlap , but that critical design , tactically speaking , should not be absorbed into the social practices of the artworld , with their institutional structures of exhibitions ,
Highlight (yellow) - ‘Critical’ in critical design practice > Page 11 · Location 406
Rather , critical design works best when it is operating within a context of use .
Note - ‘Critical’ in critical design practice > Page 11 · Location 406
yes!
Highlight (yellow) - The structure and approach to writing > Page 14 · Location 462
Critical design embraces subjectivity , ambiguity , and the object as an evocative agent . In short , critical design as a research method sets out to ask more questions than it aims to answer .
Highlight (yellow) - The structure and approach to writing > Page 14 · Location 476
It renders claims that critical design is not design because the objects do not function in a utilitarian sense redundant .
Highlight (yellow) - The structure and approach to writing > Page 15 · Location 485
This chapter presents three distinct approaches to critical practice ; these three types of practice characterize contemporary critical design and are defined as associative design , speculative design , and critical design .
Highlight (yellow) - The structure and approach to writing > Page 15 · Location 490
The chapter establishes how these three approaches in critical practice function as a form of satiric design , in each case the designers use satire in their design work to establish critique and engage user audiences in debate on and around the work through the use of humour .
2. History
Highlight (pink) - A forgotten history of critical design practice > Page 17 · Location 524
In the essay ‘ Critical design – forgotten history or paradigm shift ’ , Cilla Robach ( 2005 )
Highlight (yellow) - An emerging critical design practice > Page 18 · Location 532
with the earliest form of critical design practice developed in Italy during the late 1950s . This movement has been described in a number of ways and termed ‘ radical design ’ , ‘ anti - design ’ , and ‘ counter design ’ .
Highlight (yellow) - An emerging critical design practice > Page 18 · Location 545
1965 . ( Sparke 2014 , 114 ) Sparke offers a comprehensive account of Italian critical design that is valuable to anyone interested in the history of critical practice . In essence , Italian critical design established a movement in product and industrial design where the designer’s function moved from being driven by that of servicing industry and commercial gain , towards a more meaningfully engaged practice focused on discursive and propositional ends . This form of practice was orientated to critically engage the concerns of the day . It
Highlight (pink) - Challenging hegemony > Page 19 · Location 552
In Italy during the Linea Italiana , also known as the Bel Design era ( 1956 – 1970 ) , 1 product designers for the first time disassociated themselves from the interests of monetary gain and embraced broader political goals , seeking a critical discourse with capitalist consumer society . Here a provocative design culture emerged out of dissatisfaction with the role of designer solely serving production and consumption .
Highlight (pink) - Challenging hegemony > Page 19 · Location 559
Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni were pioneering Italian designers in this area and could arguably be considered the first critical designers .
Highlight (pink) - Challenging hegemony > Page 19 · Location 560
The Castiglioni brothers were successful commercial product designers ; however , in an experimental turn , they started to integrate re - definitions of context and use into their product design . They moved away from formal development towards a ready - made ad hoc approach in their design work . The design of the Sella Stool with Bicycle Saddle ( 1957 ) exemplifies this approach and the divergence from the orthodox design of the day .
Highlight (yellow) - Anti-design > Page 23 · Location 622
An influential critical design group at this time was Alchimia . Alchimia used mundane designed objects to proclaim trivial culture as the new high culture .
Highlight (yellow) - Participatory design > Page 25 · Location 655
Participatory design , as it was to become known , is a practice that attempts to involve actively all stakeholders ( e.g . employees , partners , customers , citizens , end users ) in the design process to help ensure the design work meets their needs .
Highlight (pink) - Unikat Design: Adding nothing but the concept > Page 26 · Location 677
In the 1980s , a German counterpoint to market - led design emerged . Setting itself apart from the German tradition of ‘ good form ’ and functionalism , the Neues Deutsches Design ( New German Design ) , sometimes referred to as Unikat Design , aimed to instigate a public debate through alternative design methods and through a revival of the ad hoc approaches pioneered by the Castiglioni brothers .
Highlight (orange) - Unikat Design: Adding nothing but the concept > Page 26 · Location 684
Frank Schreiner’s Consumer Rest Chair was designed
Highlight (pink) - Unikat Design: Adding nothing but the concept > Page 26 · Location 697
The result was objects such as Tejo Remi’s You Can’t Lay Down Your Memories : Chest of Drawers ( 1991 ) , which is traditional in its shape and operation but made of various pieces of discarded furniture . In Remy’s drawers , since neither the type
Highlight (pink) - Unikat Design: Adding nothing but the concept > Page 27 · Location 699
The radical nature of Droog’s ethos is further represented by Richard Hutten’s bench design S [ h ] it on it ( 1994 ) . Shaped as a swastika , the bench is a literal , although ironic , example of the object as an expression of ideology .
Highlight (yellow) - Unikat Design: Adding nothing but the concept > Page 28 · Location 703
New German Design groups and Droog represented a renewed confidence in critical and conceptual design that first appeared in Italy some thirty years earlier . The aim of these was not to manufacture industrial products , but to provide a critical examination of consumer practice in the political and sociotechnical concerns of the day .
Highlight (yellow) - Critical design at the Royal College of Art > Page 31 · Location 768
Critical design at the Royal College of Art So as a term ‘ critical design ’ originates from the RCA , appearing some twenty years ago in the design research community as a particular approach in human computer interaction . It describes a method of working that the Computer Related Design Studio used in a number of projects between 1994 and 2005 . Referring to the longer tradition of critical approaches in industrial design and architecture , it aimed to re - establish alternative views on product and interface design , telling stories about human values and behaviours that were neglected in commercial industrial design practices .
Highlight (yellow) - Critical design at the Royal College of Art > Page 31 · Location 777
Gaver and Dunne’s introduction explains how critical design employs methods that are associated with fine art practice . However , in understanding the difficulty in extending product design’s agency in this way , they identify the attributes that make the critical design objects of design rather than objects of conceptual art . They do this with reference to The Pillow ( 1995 ) designed by Dunne as part of Hertzian Tales ( 1994 – 1997 ) The Pillow is an abstract radio
Highlight (yellow) - Critical design at the Royal College of Art > Page 31 · Location 786
from everyday concerns and as a result , the design required explanation . Addressing this , Dunne developed an extrinsic narrative – or scenario of use – in the form of a pseudo - documentary . The documentary titled Pillow Talk features
Highlight (yellow) - Critical design at the Royal College of Art > Page 32 · Location 795
Since critical design’s popularization , the term has come to represent almost any form of design practice attempting to establish a critical move through design . In some respects , this has had a detrimental effect because it has not been representative of the diversity in examples of critical design practice nor is it inclusive of the rich history
Highlight (yellow) - Synergies between precedent and contemporary examples of critical design > Page 33 · Location 815
Superstudio and Archigram used objects and collage in the production of magazine publications to visualize localized utopian futures .
Highlight (pink) - Synergies between precedent and contemporary examples of critical design > Page 33 · Location 818
Walker’s Chromo 11 : Airlife Seat Belts ( 2004 ) .
Highlight (yellow) - Conclusion > Page 38 · Location 875
research carried out within this context . Paradoxically , the structures and media that contribute to and support commercial and professional design culture ; publications and exhibitions , for example , also support critical design practice , since work is disseminated through galleries and the popular design press . Here we see a problem in critical design practice in that it is dependent on its links with the design culture within which it operates and simultaneously critiques .
3. Theories, methods, and tactics
Highlight (yellow) - Design as a medium for inquiry > Page 41 · Location 901
Critical design practice is used as a medium to engage user audiences and provoke debate .
Highlight (yellow) - Design as a medium for inquiry > Page 41 · Location 902
It does this by encouraging its audiences to think critically about themes engendered in the design work . Operating in this way , critical design can be described as an affective , rather than an explanatory , practice in so much as it opens lines of inquiry as opposed to providing answers or solutions to questions or design problems .
Highlight (yellow) - Design as a medium for inquiry > Page 42 · Location 905
The focus here is on the epistemic qualities of the designed object i.e . how objects encourage us to think in tangible ways when we consider how they feature in everyday life . Applied in this way , the design of objects – and the scenarios that they exist
Highlight (yellow) - Design as a medium for inquiry > Page 42 · Location 907
in – can be employed to create a descriptive comprehension of complex issues .
Highlight (pink) - Design as a medium for inquiry > Page 42 · Location 908
Sarah Gold’s Alternet ( 2014 )
Highlight (yellow) - Post-optimal design and para-functionality > Page 44 · Location 952
Faraday Chair ( 1997 ) , the furniture provides shelter from electromagnetic fields invading homes .
Highlight (yellow) - Post-optimal design and para-functionality > Page 44 · Location 960
‘ para - functionality ’ : a form of design where function is used to encourage reflection on how electronic products condition our behaviour . The prefix ‘ para - ’ suggests that such design is within the realms of utility but attempts to go beyond conventional definitions of functionalism to include the poetic .
Highlight (yellow) - Post-optimal design and para-functionality > Page 45 · Location 963
to more propositional ends , an approach that slows the interaction and forces interpretation of the object’s use . This suggests a subversion termed ‘ user - unfriendliness ’ :
Highlight (yellow) - Post-optimal design and para-functionality > Page 45 · Location 969
Dunne and Raby 2014 ) . Here conventions within industrial and product design orthodoxy are set against conventions in a critical practice , i.e . optimal against post - optimal , functional against para - functional , and user - friendliness against user - unfriendliness . This
Highlight (yellow) - Post-optimal design and para-functionality > Page 46 · Location 976
Design can be described as falling into two very broad categories : affirmative design and critical design . The former reinforces how things are now ; it conforms to the cultural , social , technical and economic expectation . Most design falls into this category . The latter rejects how things are now as being the only possibility , it provides a critique of the prevailing situation through designs that embody alternative social , cultural , technical or economic values … Critical design , or design that asks carefully crafted questions and makes us think , is just as difficult and just as important as design that solves problems or find answers . ( Dunne and Raby 2001 , 58 )
Note - Post-optimal design and para-functionality > Page 46 · Location 976
this is Critical!
Highlight (yellow) - Post-optimal design and para-functionality > Page 46 · Location 989
a type of design that does not continually strive to make our lives easier , but rather trouble us an annoyance with the aiming to make us look critically at our lives and society in general . ( Robach 2005 , 36 )
Highlight (yellow) - Rhetorical use > Page 47 · Location 1010
Through rhetorical use , critical design practice aims to explore what might be and to establish alternatives that offer an experience similar to the quality of poetic language . This encourages the user to imagine the object in their lives , while simultaneously creating a dilemma of interpretation within the user . This dilemma of interpretation encourages the user to question the qualities of the object and the narrative of use that contextualize it . It is within this dilemma of interpretation , and in the suspension of disbelief , that questions can be asked of the product design and of the designer’s critical position .
Highlight (yellow) - Discursive design > Page 48 · Location 1023
The primary intent of the discursive designer is to encourage users ’ reflections upon , or engagements with , a particular discourse ; the goal is to affect the intellect . As distinct from objects of art , architecture , and graphics , which can all be agents of discourse , products have particular qualities that offer unique communicative advantages . ( Tharp and Tharp , 2009 )
Highlight (yellow) - Discursive design > Page 48 · Location 1030
The Near Future Laboratory designers ’ , Julian Bleecker and Nicolas Nova , Slow Messenger ( 2009 ) offers another example of discursive commentary through design intervention and playful experiment .
Highlight (yellow) - Discursive design > Page 48 · Location 1035
Another example of discursive design is Superflux’s Open Informant ( 2013 ) . Open Informant takes the form of a networked object including a phone app and e - ink badge . The
Highlight (yellow) - Design fiction > Page 54 · Location 1140
Design fiction is closely related to critical design practice . However , it is better seen as a method or tactic rather than a field of practice . Design fiction brings together approaches from product design , science fact , and science fiction . This combination of practices challenges the expectations of what each does on its own and ties them together into something new . Design fiction speculates about new ideas through prototyping and storytelling , where the design device functions like props or conversation pieces that help users imagine .
Highlight (yellow) - Design fiction > Page 54 · Location 1145
Design fiction utilizes what Kirby ( 2010 ) describes as the ‘ diegetic prototype ’ . Diegetic prototypes depict future technologies in terms of need , viability , and benevolence to large public audiences .
Note - Design fiction > Page 54 · Location 1147
diegetic is a great word
Highlight (yellow) - Design fiction > Page 54 · Location 1147
A science or technology that only exists in the fictional world is called diegesis .
Highlight (yellow) - Design fiction > Page 55 · Location 1158
Bleecker writes , ‘ As much as science facts tell you what is and is not possible , design fiction understands that constraints are infinitely malleable ’ ( Bleecker 2010 , 63 ) . Design fiction is regularly used in speculative and projective forms of critical design practice .
Highlight (pink) - Design fiction > Page 55 · Location 1164
the DNA data of a lesbian couple was analysed by 23andme ( a biotechnology company that offers personal genome services ) to simulate and visualize their potential children . The team then created a set of fictional , future family photos using this information to produce a hardcover album that was presented to the couple as a gift .
Highlight (pink) - Speculation and proposition > Page 56 · Location 1191
The Auger - Loizeau design studio , led by James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau , has produced a body of speculative design work engaging themes of robotics , cybernetics , telepresence , connexity , and microbiological fuel development . Auger’s thesis Why Robot ( 2012 ) provides
Highlight (pink) - Constructing publics > Page 62 · Location 1288
Natalie Jeremijenko’s Feral Dogs Project ( 2005 ) demonstrates how this application of critical design facilitates a democratic discussion about technology and technological policy . Feral Dogs consists of hacked robotic toys with integrated environmental sensors so that they behave in particular ways in response to environmental contaminants . Feral Dogs is a compelling example of how concerns can be made public and engage a non - expert community in a discussion that they might not otherwise engage with . Through the project , Jeremijenko demonstrates the possibilities of creatively appropriating technology by engaging a public in political issues surrounding science ; in this case , monitoring environmental pollution in the Bronx , New York .
Highlight (yellow) - Satire > Page 67 · Location 1379
Making objects strange and using purposeful ambiguity in address to serious issues create paradox and contradiction and with paradox
Highlight (yellow) - Satire > Page 67 · Location 1380
and contradiction , critical design inevitably appears humorous . Humour is important in critical design practice ; projects are often playful , and on occasion seem obscure due to their characteristics and elaborate scenarios of use . Humour is effectively used as a means to engage user audiences . Critical design practice employs satire as a particular form of humour . Satire is the art of diminishing a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking attitudes of amusement , contempt , scorn , or indignation towards it . In design’s various critical practices , satire functions as constructive social criticism . This is done with the intent of shaming individuals , the discipline , and society into improvement . Satire has long been used as a device to offer critique , but it also
Highlight (yellow) - Satire > Page 68 · Location 1385
provides a provocative lens by which to examine design’s forms of critical practice . Critical design practice delivers a satiric response to disciplinary , scientific , or social concerns . Literary satire , with its established theoretical foundation , can be used to show how satire functions in critical design practice . Satire often takes the form of the genre it spoofs . This is important as critical design practice functions as a commentary by subverting product design , while at the same time refusing to abandon design principles . A function of critical design practice , in line with the function of satire , is constructive social criticism . In achieving this , the designers use wit as an instrument to afford critical reflection . Design functioning in this way holds vices ,
Highlight (yellow) - Satire > Page 68 · Location 1390
abuses , and shortcomings found in orthodox product design , scientific developments , or sociocultural conditions up to ridicule . An issue is criticized because it falls short of some standard that the designer , as critic , desires that it should reach . Inseparable from any definition of satire is its corrective purpose , expressed through a critical mode that ridicules or otherwise attacks those conditions needing reformation in the opinion of the satirist designer . There is no satire without this corrective purpose ; therefore , critical design practice is only critical design practice if it has corrective purpose . Satirists induce the audience to protest and as a result , the language of the satirist is full of irony , paradox , antithesis , colloquialism , anti - climax ,
Highlight (yellow) - Satire > Page 68 · Location 1396
obscenity , violence , vividness , and exaggeration . Thus , satire attempts to affect some changes in the behaviour of the target as well as to encourage others not to behave in such a manner . Among the strategies are exaggeration , distortion , understatement , innuendo , simile , burlesque , metaphor , oxymoron , parable , and allegory . There are two broad forms of satire named after the classic roman satirists who developed the styles . Horatian satire , named after Horace , is optimistic , less political , humorous , and identifies folly . While , Juvenalian satire , named after Juvenal , is the opposite of horatian with a focus on evil , political , and savage ridicule . These forms of satire are useful to consider in a theoretical analysis of critical design . Juvenalian satire works
Highlight (yellow) - Satire > Page 68 · Location 1401
through narrative techniques of antithesis , obscenity , and violence , whereas horatian is much more playful and reflective , operating through exaggeration , burlesque , and metaphor . We will see in Chapter 5 how the form of satire employed in design work is a useful mechanism to differentiate between types of critical design practice . These affective and communicative methods augment orthodox approaches to product and industrial design . They extend a conventional understanding of function and ultimately extend the agency of product design to become an instrument of inquiry , provocation , and change as much as an instrument to drive innovation , commercial , and technological interests .
5. Practice
Highlight (yellow) - Design practice as satire > Page 113 · Location 2176
Design practice as satire The examples discussed throughout this chapter establish their critique through a form of satiric design . Satire has long been used as a device to offer critique , but it also provides a provocative lens by which to examine design’s forms of critical practice . To reiterate what was introduced in chapter 3 , satire , with its established theoretical foundation , diminishes a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking attitudes of amusement , contempt , scorn , or indignation towards it . In design’s various critical practices , satire functions as constructive social criticism . In achieving this , the designers use wit as an instrument to afford critical reflection and engage a user audience through humour . In this way , critical design practice highlights the vices , abuses , and shortcomings found in orthodox product design , while holding scientific developments or sociocultural conditions up to ridicule . At its most strident , this is done with the intent of shaming individuals , the discipline , or even society itself to reflect and ultimately work towards the improvement of a situation
Comments