Criticism and Function in Critical Design Practice

This article focuses on critical design as a field of industrial design practice. It considers some barriers and misconceptions to critical design practice being seen as part of a disciplinary project. The first part of the article reviews the criticism of critical design to identify inadequacies in how the criticism is grounded. Analysis of critical design practice often comes from perspectives developed in art and visual culture discourses. However, analyzing the practice from this perspective has limitations; instead, a more design-centric focus is needed. The second part of the article discusses “function”—a concept often used to ground criticism of critical design practice but, again, one that has limitations. Function offers insufficient grounds for criticism and claims that critical design is not a form of product design because the objects do not “function” in a utilitarian sense. I explore the concept of function to show not only that an object’s function has the potential to extend beyond utility, efficiency, and optimization, but also that even in the strictest modernist sense, function has always comprised characteristics that move into post-optimal realms—beyond efficient use, utility, and practical specifications. I argue instead for an emphasis on the relational, dynamic characteristics of function, which supports seeing, and discussing, critical design practice in the same manner that other examples of orthodox industrial design are discussed

Contextualising Critical Design: Towards a Taxonomy of Critical Practice in Product Design

This study focuses on critical design practice. The research challenges the colloquial understanding of ‘critical design.’ It problematises, defines and reassesses the concept of ‘critical design’ situating it among other forms of critical design practice. The research reviews the field of activity from a historical perspective. It reviews contemporary activity in contexts of design research and the gallery system to establish domain authorities and theoretical perspectives that inform critical design practice. The research draws from a body of literature relating to design theory and critical design practice to identify several important themes by which to discuss the practice. The research employs a hermeneutic methodology and engages expert ‘critical’ designers through a series of conversational interviews. The interviews are analysed using code to theory methods of inductive qualitative analysis and subjected to hermeneutic analysis that draws on the extensive contextual review. Salient concepts found in the discourse are extracted, theorised and organised to create taxonomy of critical design practice. In the taxonomy, the field of critical design practice is categorised by three types of practice: Associative Design, Speculative Design and Critical Design. These three practices are differentiated by topics addressed in each and further differentiated by the type of Satire, Narrative and Object Rationality used in each practice. The original contribution of this research is a Taxonomy of critical practice in product design, which consists of a written and visual dimension. The taxonomy acts as a discursive tool to chart design activity and it illustrates the diversity in critical design practice beyond the colloquial understanding of ‘critical design’. The taxonomy presents three distinct types of critical design practice; it outlines the design methods used to establish the critical move through design and identifies the contexts where critical design is practiced. It can be used to compare projects, chart designers’ activity over time, illustrate trajectories of practice and identify themes in practice. The taxonomy provides theoretical apparatus to analyse the field. Such analysis contributes towards a discussion on critical design within design studies

AHRC Challenges of the Future: Public Services

This report addresses the state of UK university-led design research in the context of public services. It identifies centres of excellence and their supporting infrastructure and maps the research landscape through a review of projects and research centres. It presents salient themes, questions and approaches within practice and details the role that design research may play in the future of public service research and innovation. Reviewing the innovative capacity of design research undertaken in the public service context, it looks at the methods, strategies and skills that afford this capacity. It identifies developmental opportunities to support further work in this context andprovides insight into future collaborations, partnerships and consortia to support activity and drive co-investment between academia, government and industry. The report aims to: •Increase awareness of how design creates high-level societal and economic benefit in the public service context. •Understand how academic design research functions strategically and how it is operationalised within this context. •Understand how university collaborations are critically important in supporting innovationwithin this context. •Understand how collaborations are initiated and sustained to add social and economic value. The research was conducted from March to June 2020 and complements five other AHRC fellowships focused on design research for place, future mobility,artificial intelligence, clean growth and policy. Reflecting its long-standing support of design research, AHRC appointed 5 Design Research Fellows. These short-term, intensive Fellowships were aimed at assessing the value of UK university-led design research to the UK’s industrial strategy

Critical design in context : history, theory, and practice

xi, 153 p. : ill. ; 23 cm

Critical Design Practice: Theoretical Perspectives and Methods of Engagement

Abstract: As interest in critical and speculative design grows in academic and cultural contexts, this paper outlines theoretical perspectives and methods used in critical design practice. The paper introduces these perspectives through a discussion on Para-functionality, Post-optimal design and the Aesthetics of Use as concepts developed to explain how the practice operates. It discusses how critical design is perceived as a form of design research. It argues that critical design practice is not objective or explanatory, but focuses on inter-subjectivity and proposition. In this context, design aims to generate debate, where the purposive function of the design is discursive. The paper discusses how the methods used in critical design practice contribute to research by exploring how the open-ended and relational characteristic of work produced by critical designers is embraced by disciplines external to product design. The paper concludes by outlining the contribution that critical design practice makes to the design discipline and beyond

Consequences of use: design proposals

New technological products have become accepted not only through their use but also through their rhetorical use in the discourse and marketing on and around them. Driven by theoretical writings on the subject of technology and prominent social events, the designs form part of a critical investigation into consequences surrounding use of technological products. Issues relating to the 'smart phone' are embodied into product design offering design proposals for presentation and debate. ASBO: considers the ‘Happy Slapping’ phenomenon and how the integration of video into the mobile phone might facilitate violence. ASBO packages mobile phones with offensive weapons and questions the phones agency in these acts. FIRST AID FOR A LOSS OF CONNECTION: explores how digital communication technologies are becoming an extension of us. Will we need to treat a loss of connection as we would an injury? The design affords the means for the suffering user to synchronize lost technology with emergency devices. DTOX explores increasing examples of addiction to product and digital communication through text, email and social media usage. A direct result of these dependencies is therapeutic products that allow users to treat their addiction. This product design offers a step-by-step detox programme that allows sufferers to tackle their addiction through planned obsolescence. (Polypropylene; Laser cut acrylic; Mobile phones; Selective Laser Sintered Maquettes, 3 x 210 x 300 mm

Between Wit and Reason: Defining Associative, Speculative and Critical Design in Practice

A growing number of designers employ design as a form of critique and speculation within disciplinary, scientific and societal frames. They share a critical perspective on the role of product design in society, recognizing the ability to construct publics on and around objects to mobilize debate. In doing this, critical designers challenge established discourse, institution, episteme, and present alternative roles for product design to those driven by technological and fiscal concerns. This interpretation of design counters hegemonic, optimistic notions of the field, aiming instead to legitimize and problematize alternate forms of design work. The article addresses design’s critical practices with the aim of developing theoretical apparatus with which to further engage the design studies community in the discourse. The article draws on a set of in-depth conversational interviews with expert critical designers. Each has played a part in the development and theorization of the practice. The interviews were analyzed to identify salience in the participants’ perspectives on critical design. From this analysis, satire, rationality, and narrative are identified as salient concepts in the operation of critical practices in design. They engage user audiences and establish the critical move through design. They also help differentiate between three types of critical practice. These types are defined in the article as associative, speculative, and critical design. They are structured into a taxonomic space by attending to the satiric devices used in each. This taxonomy provides theoretical apparatus to analyze and discuss critical practices in design

Review: Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming

Research article reviewing the book 'Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming' by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby

Critical Design in Context: History, Theory, and Practices

Critical Design is becoming an increasingly influential discipline, affecting policy and practice in a range of fields. This book introduces critical design as a field, providing a history of the discipline, outlining its key influences, theories and approaches, and explaining how critical design can work in practice through a range of contemporary examples. Critical Design moves away from traditional approaches that limit design's role to the production of profitable objects, focusing instead on a practice that is interrogative, discursive and experimental. Using a wide range of examples from contemporary practice, and drawing on interviews with key practitioners, Critical Design In Context provides an introduction to critical design practice and a manifesto for how a radical and unorthodox practice might provide design answers in an age of austerity and ecological crisis

Graffolution D2.1 - Graffiti vandalism in public areas and transport report and categorisation model

The first publically accessible deliverable the UAL team has led on for Graffolution. Others will be available in due course. This report (D2.1) builds the starting point and foundation of Graffolution's research activities. It delivers information from an extensive literature review focusing on the extent of graffiti vandalism in Europe with specific concentration on public areas and transport. Early insights showed that the available data on the extent of graffiti vandalism is very fragmented which makes a consistent European wide analysis challenging