Design studies can refer to any design-oriented studies but is more formally an academic discipline or field of study that pursues, through both theoretical and practical modes of inquiry, a critical understanding of design practice and its effects in society.
Characteristics and scope Design studies encompasses the study of both the internal practices of design and the external effects that design activity has on society, culture and the environment. Susan Yelavich explained design studies as embracing "two broad perspectives—one that focuses inward on the nature of design and one that looks outward to the circumstances that shape it, and conversely, the circumstances design changes, intentionally or not". This dual aspect is reflected in the complementary orientations of the two leading journals in the field. Design Studies (established 1979) is "the interdisciplinary journal of design research" and is "focused on developing understanding of design processes". Design Issues (established 1984) "examines design history, theory, and criticism" and "provokes inquiry into the cultural and intellectual issues surrounding design".
An interdisciplinary field, design studies includes many scholarship paradigms and uses an evolving set of methodologies and theories drawn from key thinkers from within the field itself. The field has connections with the humanities, the social sciences and the sciences, but many scholars regard design itself as a distinct discipline.
Design studies scholars recognize that design, as a practice, is only one facet of much larger circumstances. They examine and question the role of design in shaping past and present personal and cultural values, especially in light of how they shape the future.
The extensive scope of design studies is conveyed in two collected sets of readings: Design Studies: A Reader (2009) is a compilation of extracts from classic writings that laid the foundations of the field, and The Routledge Companion to Design Studies (2016)Sparke, Penny, and Fiona Fisher (eds.). The Routledge Companion to Design Studies. London, New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016. contains newer writings over a wide range of topics such as gender and sexuality, consumerism and responsibility, globalization and post-colonialism.
History Origins and early development The origins of design studies lie in the rapid expansion of issues and topics around design since the 1960s, including its role as an academic discipline, its relationships with technological and social change, and its cultural and environmental impacts.Margolin, Victor. The Politics of the Artificial: Essays on Design and Design Studies. University of Chicago Press. 2002. As a field of studies it developed more specifically in the development of interaction between design history and design research. Debates about the role of design history and the nature of design research from the 1970s and 80s were brought together in 1992 when Victor Margolin argued in the journal Design Studies for the incorporation of design history into design research, in a combined approach to the study of design. Margolin noted the "dynamic crossings of intellectual boundaries" when considering developments in both fields at the time, and defined design studies as "that field of inquiry which addresses questions of how we make and use products in our daily lives and how we have done so in the past".
Margolin's argument triggered counterarguments and other suggestions about what constitutes design history and how to characterize the study of design as something more than a professional practice. In a reply to Margolin in the Journal of Design History in 1993, Adrian Forty argued that design history had consistently performed a vital role in examining questions around quality in design and was already embracing new lines of thought, for example from cultural studies and anthropology. The growing debate led to a special issue of the journal Design Issues in 1995 which focused attention on "some of the controversies and problems that surround the seemingly simple task of telling the history of design".
A shift from design history towards design studies continued to develop as the overlapping research methods and approaches to the study of design began to lead to broader questions of meaning, authority and power. The realization came that design history is only "but one component of what goes on in studying design, and to claim that all that is going on now could use the umbrella term 'design history' is not tenable".
Foundational figures
Reyner Banham (1922–1988) Banham's Theory and Design in the First Machine Age and his journalistic articles written for New Society have been described by the British writer and design historian Penny Sparke as representing a major "shift in how material culture was seen.Frith, S. (1995). Speaking Volumes: New Society (1962–87) THE 27 January 1995. Penny Sparke credits Banham as a major influence on her own work, describing his work as "pivotal". Sparke, P & DHS (2007). Oral History Project Interview with Penny Sparke; Track 1. From Gooding, J. V., Design History in Britain From the 1970s to 2012: Context, Formation and Development, Ph.D. Dissertation University of Northumbria, Newcastle (January 2012) p. 200–203. His writing focused on popular commodities as well as formal architecture.
Gui Bonsiepe (born 1934) Bonsiepe is a German designer and professor for various universities including FH Koln; Carnegie Mellon; EUA, Chile; LBDI/FIESC, Brazil; Jan van Eyck Academy, Netherlands. His most influential work is Design and Democracy.
Richard Buchanan American professor of design, management, and information systems and editor of the journal Design Issues. He is well known for "extending the application of design into new areas of theory and practice, writing, and teaching as well as practicing the concepts and methods of interaction design." As a co-editor of Discovering Design: Explorations in Design Studies with Victor Margolin, he brought together the fields of psychology, sociology, political theory, technology studies, rhetoric, and philosophy.
Nigel Cross (born 1942) Cross is a British academic, design researcher and educator who has focused on design's intellectual space in the academic sphere. He is an emeritus professor of design studies in the Department of Design and Innovation, Faculty of Technology, at the UK's Open University, and emeritus editor-in-chief of Design Studies, the international journal of design research. In his 1982 journal article "Designerly Ways of Knowing" in Design Studies, Cross argued that design has its own intellectual and practical culture as a basis for education, contrasting it with cultures of science and arts and humanities.
Clive Dilnot Originally educated as a fine artist, Dilnot later began studying social philosophy and the sociology of culture with Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. Dilnot has worked on the history, theory, and criticism of the visual arts in their broadest terms. His teaching and writing have focused on design history, photography, criticism, and theory. Dilnot studied ethics in relation to design, and the role of design's capabilities in creating a humane world in his book, Ethics? Design? published in 2005.
Adrian Forty (born 1948) Forty was Professor of Architectural History at The Bartlett, The Faculty of the Built Environment at University College London. Forty believed that the drive to define a new field, the field of design studies, was unnecessary due to the fact that the field of design history had not exhausted all of its possibilities. His book Objects of Desire explores how consumer goods relate to larger issues of social processes.
Tony Fry Fry is a British design theorist and philosopher who writes on the relationship between design, unsustainability, and politics. Fry has taught design and cultural theory in Britain, the United States, Hong Kong and Australia. He is perhaps best known for his writing on defuturing, the destruction of the future by design.
John Heskett (1937–2014) In the late 1970s, Heskett became a prominent member of a group of academics based in several of Britain's art schools (then part of the polytechnics) who helped develop the discipline of design history and theory, later to become subsumed under the broader banner of design studies. Heskett brought his deep knowledge of economics, politics and history to the project and worked alongside scholars from other disciplines to communicate the meaning and function of that increasingly important concept, 'design', both past and present.
Victor Margolin (1941–2019) Considered one of the founders of design studies, Victor Margolin was professor emeritus of design history at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He was a co-editor of the academic design journal, Design Issues, and the author, editor, or co-editor of a number of books including Design Discourse, Discovering Design, The Idea of Design, The Designed World, and The Politics of the Artificial.
Victor Papanek (1923–1998) An industrial designer, Papanek suggested that industrial design had lethal effects by virtue of creating new species of permanent garbage and by choosing materials and processes that pollute the air. His writing and teaching were consistently in favour of re-focusing design for the general good of humanity and the environment.
Elizabeth Sanders As a practitioner, Sanders introduced many of the methods being used today to drive design from a human-centered perspective. She has practiced participatory design research within and between all the design disciplines. Her current research focuses on codesign processes for innovation, intervention, and transdisciplinary collaboration.
Penny Sparke Sparke is a professor of design history and director of the Modern Interiors Research Centre (MIRC) at Kingston University, London. Along with Fiona Fisher, Sparke co-edited The Routledge Companion to Design Studies, a comprehensive collection of essays embracing the wide range of scholarship relating to design—theoretical, practice-related, and historical.
Issues and concepts Design studies inquires about the meanings and consequences of design. It studies the influence of designers and the effects design has on citizens and the environment. Victor Margolin distinguishes a degree in design from a degree in design studies by saying that "the former is about producing design, while the latter is about reflecting on design as it has been practiced, is currently practiced, and how it might be practiced".
Design studies urges a rethinking of design as a process, as a practice, and as a generator or products and systems that gives lives meaning and is imbricated in our economic and political systems. The study of design thinking explores the complexities inherent in the task of thinking about design. Design studies is also concerned with the relationship between design and gender, design and race, and design and culture. It studies design as ethics, its role in sustainability (social and environmental), and the nature of agency in design's construction the artificial.
Issues
Ethics Design has the capacity of structuring life in certain ways and thus design should result in greater good for individuals and society but it doesn't always do so. Ethics deals with how our actions affect others and should affect others. Design studies sees ethics as central to design. Tony Fry, a leading figure in design studies, said that it is widely recognized that design is an ethical process but remains underdeveloped and marginal within design education.