- Critical design
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Critical Design, takes a critical theory based approach to design. Popularized by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby through their firm, Dunne & Raby. Critical design uses designed artifacts as an embodied critique or commentary on consumer culture. Both the designed artifact (and subsequent use) and the process of designing such an artifact causes reflection on existing values, mores, and practices in a culture.
A critical design will often challenge its audience's preconceptions and expectations thereby provoking new ways of thinking about the object, its use, and the surrounding environment. Critical Designers generally believe design that provokes, inspires, makes us think, and questions fundamental assumptions can make a valuable contribution to debates about the role technology plays in everyday life.
Design as critique is not a new idea. For example, Italian Radical Design of the 1960s and 70s was highly critical of prevailing social values and design ideologies. Critical design builds on this tradition.
The term Critical Design was first used in Anthony Dunne’s book Hertzian Tales (1999)[1] and further developed in Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects (2001) [2]Its opposite is affirmative design: design that reinforces the status quo. It is more of an attitude than style or movement; a position rather than a method. There are many people doing this kind of work who have never heard of the term critical design who have their own way of describing what they do. Naming it Critical Design is simply a useful way of making this activity more visible and emphasising that design has other possibilities beyond solving problems.
Nevertheless Critical Design is discussed as an approach in Design Research, as a way to critique social, cultural, technical and economic controversies through designing critical artefacts. According to Sanders Critical Design involves also probes as "ambiguous stimuli that designers send to people who then respond to them, providing insights for the design process."[3]Uta Brandes identifies Critical Design as discrete Design Research method[4]and Bowen integrates it in human-centered design activities as useful tool for stakeholders to critically think about possible futures. [5]
In recent years, FABRICA, a communication research center, owned by Italian fashion giant, Benetton Group, has been actively involved in producing provocative imagery and critical design. FABRICA's Visual Communication department, under the leadership of Omar Vulpinari, actively participates in critiquing social, political and environmental issues through global awareness campaigns for international magazines and organizations like UN-WHO. Some young artists producing critical design at FABRICA in recent years are Erik Ravello (Cuba), Yianni Hill (Australia), Marian Grabmayer (Austria), Priya Khatri (India), Andy Rementer (United States), and An Namyoung (South Korea).
The concept of critical play has also come into vogue in recent years. Researcher Mary Flanagan wrote Critical Play:Radical Game Design in 2009 [6] , the same year that Lindsay Grace started the Critical Gameplay project.
Dunne & Raby and other teachers, researchers and graduates of the Royal College of Art (RCA) such as James Auger, Crispin Jones and Noam Toran, are also well known practitioners of this area of design, but there are other designers working in a similar way as: Krzysztof Wodiczko, Natalie Jeremijenko, Jurgen Bey, Marti Guixé and Elio Caccavale. In Latin America, the Critical Design is developed as research in the Faber-Ludens Institute of Interaction Design and the collective "Rápido e Sujo".
See also
- Activism
- Cautionary Tales
- Conceptual Design
- Contestable Futures
- Critical Gameplay
- Design Fiction
- Interrogative Design
- Radical Design
- Satire
- Social Fiction
- Speculative Design
References
- ^ Dunne, Anthonny (1999). Hertzian tales : electronic products, aesthetic experience and critical design. London: Royal College of Art computer related design research studio. pp. 117. ISBN 1-874175-27-6.
- ^ Raby, Fiona (2001). Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects. Basel: Birkhäuser. ISBN 978-3764365660.
- ^ Sanders, Elizabeth B.-N. (September 2006). "Design Research in 2006". Design Research Quarterly 1 (1): 1–8. ISSN 0142-694X.
- ^ Brandes, Uta (2009) (in German). Designtheorie und Designforschung. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink. ISBN 978-3-7705-4664-0.
- ^ "Crazy ideas or creative probes?: presenting critical artefacts to stakeholders to develop innovative product ideas". Proceedings of EAD07: Dancing with Disorder: Design, Discourse and Disaster. April 2007.
- ^ Flanagan, Mary (2009). Critical Play:Radical Game Design. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-06268-8.
http://revminds.seedmagazine.com/revminds/member/anthony_dunne/http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/thinktank/dunne_print.html
External links
- Dunne & Raby
- Noam Toran
- Crispin Jones
- Elio Caccavale
- Martí Guixé
- Natalie Jeremijenko
- Jurgen Bey
- Auger Loizeau
- Troika
- FABRICA
- Critical Gameplay Project
- Designing Critical Design, part 1
- Designing Critical Design, part 2
- How should we critique ‘Critical Design’?
- Critical Design and nanotech
- Don't Panic by Roger Ibars (article)
- Review of Don't Panic
- Critical Design F.A.Q
- Rápido e Sujo/Quick and Dirty (Brazil)
Categories:- Critical design
- Critical theory
- Design Research
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