Introducción
The term “agency” has various connotations in design, two of which
highlight themes within the articles featured in this issue of Design
Asuntos. A “design agency,” for example, commonly refers to a specific
organizational form of design—that is a company, consultancy, firm,
or business. Depending on how it is legally registered (Por ejemplo,
whether as a public or private company, or a non- or for profit), un
agency can entail particular duties and have specific rights. Esto es
conspicuous in architectural agencies, which are associated with a
registered or licensed architect and have consequent legal, insur-
ance, and public accountabilities as well as fee scales and tax rules.
Design remains relatively less codified than some other professions,
and its forms and duties can be more diverse. Professional identities
of design were multiple and contested in the United States, as told
in the article by Leah Armstrong, prior to the establishment in 1944
of the Society of Industrial Design (SID). Less codified than other
professions, design also takes many organizational forms beyond
that of a design agency. Notablemente, several further articles in this issue
argue for the expansion of design within organizations including
corporations and governments.
Agency also has a more general meaning, namely as action
to produce a particular effect. As a form of action, design manifests
in many ways. Design forms—within the articles here—include
clothes and products, postage stamps and board games, stories and
services, strategy and policies. Authors also attend to the effects of
these designs. Postage stamps, Por ejemplo, represent national cul-
tural heritage, and board games can impart political messages. El
expanse of design actions and effects becomes apparent when read-
ing across the articles. While laws circumscribe architectural action
in specific ways, anyone can deploy design—in many forms and in
diverse organizations—for profit, for cultural, for political, or for
other purposes. Alongside their study of various forms and quali-
ties of design, the authors articulate the agency of design within or-
ganizations, within wider society, and within societal change. Par-
ticularly with the expansion of design within the higher echelons of
corporations and governments, evident in several of the articles, nosotros
might be prompted to think further about the accountability—and
responsibility—of design today.
In her article, Armstrong traces the historical emergence of
industrial design as a profession in tandem with a burgeoning con-
sumer culture and “new nationalism” in the inter- and post-war
https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_e_00643
© 2021 Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts
Problemas de diseño: Volumen 37, Número 3 Verano 2021
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United States. Específicamente, she investigates how the 1930 Nueva York
World’s Fair propelled a particular idea and identity of design
through popular consumer magazines. She details an instance of
collaboration between the Fair’s Publicity Office and Vogue, en el cual
an article featured proposals for future fashion by nine prominent,
male industrial designers. The proposals of these “Designing Men”
manifested particular ideas of progress, namely design as mastery
over modern industrial production and invention. Armstrong elu-
cidates how their portrayal of design—as masterful, rational, tech-
nical, and corporate—contrasted with that of fashion design, era
cast and diminished as a feminine, amateur field. Tension between
the fields endured when the 1944 SID Code of Conduct officially ex-
cluded fashion designers, and that tension continues today, for ex-
amplio, in museum collections that exhibit strongly-gendered dis-
tinctions. De este modo, her history of design professionalization is also one
of its patriarchal effects.
In another national historical context, Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler
and Einat Lachover study the depiction of women on Israeli postage
stamps appearing between 1948 y 2020. Además, and a rele-
vant historical precedent to Helena Trippe’s elucidation of design
roles in government, Gitler and Lachover point out design members
of the national committee commissioning and approving the
stamps. They analyze three series of stamps in terms of wider cul-
tural phenomena including the “second wave” of Israeli feminism,
nationalist activism, and popular culture. Their study also reveals
absences, including the relative lack of cultural and religious minor-
ities. In addition to the choices of female subject, edad, and setting
and framing of the subject depicted, they analyze design techniques
ranging from the photographic to the hand-drawn, line, color and
mood, script, and fonts. They articulate design decisions as cultural,
manifesting particular qualities of character and gender within a
“hegemonic Zionist-Israeli narrative.” Gitler and Lachover disclose
design as replete with socio-political agency.
The political agency of design is expounded in Diana
Garvin’s article titled “Militarizing Monopoly.” Hers is a history of
how the board game was mobilized during World War II by three
different nations, allies, and enemies. Tracing the invention of Mo-
nopoly in the US as a pedagogical tool, Garvin elucidates how the
two original sets of rules embodied contrasting political-economic
logics. One set of rules for game play rewarded collective wealth
generation and implicitly warned against the concentration of land
in the hands of a few, while a second set of rules enforced a zero-
sum logic, in which individuals win by monopolizing wealth and
crushing opponents. The latter logic prevailed in the game copy-
right as purchased by Parker Brothers in 1935, thereafter licensed
in the UK and then in Italy. Garvin, detailing the adaptions to the
language and design of the game in the different national contexts,
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Problemas de diseño: Volumen 37, Número 3 Verano 2021
makes a forceful argument that redesign exceeded mere translation.
The acquisition and domination of particular properties, which sig-
nified capitalism through nomenclature and graphics in one context
eran, in Italy, designed to promote dictatorship and militarization
as the fascist regime invaded East Africa.
Situated in business contexts, the next three articles in this
Design Issues also elucidate the capacity of design to act in terms of
expanded reach and influence. To theorize service design and “cus-
tomer experience” beyond merely material aspects, the article by
Youngsoo Lee and Miso Kim develop a concept of “storytelling.”
They draw inspiration from two sources, namely Aristotle’s Poetics
and Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, which is also applied in
novels, films, and game design. Service storytelling is framed in
terms of two aspects. Primero, they discuss the notion of causes in
terms of four components influencing the service: material, efficient,
end, and formal. An example of a formal cause, which refers to the
genre or character of the story, might be a guiding principle of
“care” that would then be considered throughout the whole service
diseño. Segundo, they articulate a model of synthesis to integrate mul-
tiple causes into the sequences and cycles of a service. Their concept
of storytelling also accounts for other’s agency, Por ejemplo, as cus-
tomers gain skills to personalize and feel enabled to advocate the
service to others. Thus designed, a service story unfolds and en-
dures within extended customer experiences and influences their
ideas and (enterrar)comportamiento.
The title of the article by Andy Dong, Maaike Kleinsmann,
and Dirk Snelders captures their argument: “The Design of Firms:
Parte 2 – Competitive Advantage” (Parte 1 was published in the pre-
vious issue of Design Issues). They argue companies need to integrate
design beyond the typical product level, in which focus is merely on
the features and qualities of a current or next product. En cambio, ellos
argue for design upstream in decision-making processes and up-
wards in the organizational hierarchy. To develop strategy and tools
for management and firm-level problems, they argue for design
“prototyping a business model.” Underpinning their argument is a
company’s “competitive advantage” in the marketplace, cual
requires more than mere product design. “Superior design,” they
articulate, is the outcome of a composite calculation of costs and
benefits and “heterogenous asset bases” at multiple levels. Este
means strategic design not only at product level but also at firm
nivel, in which creativity is involved regarding the overall product
portfolio, organizational structure, resource distribution, and rou-
tines. Zara’s “fast fashion,” they argue, is about more than clothes;
it’s about the seasonal release of limited product along with ship-
ping and distribution systems. Beyond the sphere of action typical
in product and even strategic design, this constitutes design of the
firm itself.
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Problemas de diseño: Volumen 37, Número 3 Verano 2021
A related argument in Guilherme Fowler A. Monteiro’s arti-
cle concerns the use of design in business strategy. Articulating four
general areas of interest in design within management research,
Montiero seeks a more profound and theoretically-grounded rela-
tion between the fields. Toward this end, he queries the meaning of
strategy and strategy problems in relation to design. He determines
that a design-based view of strategy is suitable to address particu-
lar types of problems, such as those requiring firms to rethink their
positioning or business model. This is due to the nature of “wicked”
problemas, which are characterized by uncertainty and surprises.
The future of human mobility in urban space is not a matter of tra-
ditional problem-solving, it requires creativity, iterative prototyp-
En g, and the co-evolution of problems and solutions. To the latter
punto, he articulates elements and steps in creative problem-fram-
En g. Sin embargo, with the caveat that a framework is necessary but not
sufficient for company success, he further elaborates aspects of the
“internal and external consistency” required in a strategic and “su-
perior design framework.” A design “meta-capability” that is rare
and hard to imitate, Montiero concludes, can enable firms to sustain
their “competitive advantage.”
Several relevant threads across these articles are brought to-
gether in the final article of this issue. The article by Helena Polati
Trippe (and her extensive references) outlines the area of “design
for policy” with reference to Sabine Junginger’s expansive notion of
“policymaking as designing.” Trippe’s justification for the expan-
sion of design parallels Montiero’s, though for purposes other than
market competition. Namely, design is formulated as an approach
to “wicked” problems, and she argues for design in problem-fram-
ing upstream within policy processes and upwards in organiza-
tional hierarchies. Trippe then hones in to service design as a type
of design that can bridge between other types, including those up-
stream (como, “design thinking” with civil servants) and down-
stream (como, “co-creation” with citizens). A bridge is needed, she
argues, at a particular stage in policymaking that involves decisions
about the type and mix of “policy instruments” through which pol-
icy is enacted. Positioning policy instruments as an “object” of de-
sign, she articulates design within the “meso level” of government.
De este modo, she argues service design can increase the efficiency and pub-
lic legitimacy of policy.
Bruce Brown
Richard Buchanan
Carl DiSalvo
Dennis Doordan
Kipum Lee
Ramia Mazé
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Problemas de diseño: Volumen 37, Número 3 Verano 2021
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