Introduction
Over the past decade there have been occasional suggestions
that the term “design” is worn out from overuse by writers who
snatched onto a trend without really understanding its meaning or
dynamic and now want to move on to another trend, which they
also do not understand. The term is no longer suitable/accept-
able/desirable/persuasive/relevant/attractive for general use. It
may be too dangerous or threatening, requiring too much thought
or explanation for the wider audiences that are now involved in
the work of design, whether as makers or consumers. It may not
fit the current trend of popular conversation in this year or that
year of business publications or academic programs or social
programs. The term should be discarded or disguised or hidden
from view, avoided in company names, book titles, journal articles
and on business cards in favor of terms that are less challenging or
difficult to understand, in favor of terms that are more vague and
euphemistic. Readers may make a list [ here ].
For the design community, however, there is less ambivalence
about the term. Popular trends may come and go, but the core of
design remains in the mind and imagination—and in the discipline
of professional practice. This takes us to Design Issues, whose goal
is to provide a forum for the discussion of the role of design in
contemporary life, involving, as it must for deeper understanding,
the interplay of history, theory and criticism as well as the pluralistic
interplay of contrasting perspectives and approaches among those
who practice design as well as those who study it. This goal is
evident in the selection of articles for this edition of the journal. They
address a wide range of issues that demonstrate not the decline of
a term but its growing significance and maturity as a key concept
of cultural life.
One of the terms often substituted for design without careful
thought is “innovation.” In the first article of this edition, however,
Mike Hobday, Anne Boddington, and Andrew Grantham explore the
relationship of design and innovation, offering an “innovation stud-
ies” perspective on design. As they explain, this is part of “a broader
question of where design could be positioned within the social
sciences as the subject expands across an increasingly wide range of
business and social activity.” This is the first of a two-part series in
which they provide valuable definitions of key terms and show how
innovation papers have, indeed, revealed the central importance of
design in business innovation. In the second part of this series, to be
published in the next issue of the journal, they examine “the emerg-
ing field of design thinking” in relation to innovation studies.
© 2011 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
DesignIssues: Volume 27, Number 4 Autumn 2011
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The next article, “The Design Stance in User-System
Interaction,” addresses the issue of how users interact with designed
systems. In addition to discussing situated interactions and the
humane approach of treating people as active, intelligent human
beings and not simply passive elements in complex systems, the
author, Nathan Crilly, addresses the issue of sophisticated users
who have the capacity to recognize that designed systems have been
designed. He develops the idea of a “design stance,” a term coined
by philosopher Daniel Dennett. This is a novel approach to interac-
tion design that suggests a subtle and complex relationship between
designer and user in situations where the designer has been more
like the Cheshire cat, invisible but for his smile.
From the user’s recognition of the designer in the system, we
move to “The ‘Designer’—the 11th Plague”: Design Discourse from
Consumer Activism to Environmentalism in 1960s Norway.” The
central theme of this historical study by Kjetil Fallan is the transfor-
mation of critical design discourse in Norway in the 1960s, where
Victor Papanek’s concern for “design for the real world” became
part of a broader effort to move design “out of its comfort zone” in
postwar Scandinavian work. It is a move from consumer activism
toward environmentalism, pointing toward, in the words of novelist
Dag Solstad, a change in modernity “from aesthetics to politics.”
The origins of design in craft, where the designer and maker
are one and the same person, are echoed in the contemporary world,
where craft continues to take a variety of forms of practice rang-
ing from crafting of software to shaping objects of everyday needs
and rituals. In “Subtle Technology: The Design Innovation of Indian
Artisanship,” Ken Botnick and Ira Raja suggest this as a point of
departure: “Looking closely at craft-driven cultures still alive in the
world can provide remarkable insights into contemporary problem-
solving. For models of sustainability and economy, nothing could
improve on the working methods of the craftsman, sourcing his
materials locally, wasting nothing, delivering custom goods made to
order—again, locally.” This is the beginning of a discussion of craft
in Indian culture and of several themes that cross between design
and craft. The goal of their study is to challenge what they call the
hierarchy separating professional design from craftsmanship as well
as the opposition that privileges individual identity above undiffer-
entiated communal identity.
In “Gestalt and Graphic Design: An Exploration of the
Humanistic and Therapeutic Effects of Visual Organization,” Julia
Moszkowicz questions the overall assessment of the effect of Gestalt
theory on the discipline of graphic design. Recognizing the connec-
tion of Gestalt psychology and the origins of graphic design in the
twentieth century, she challenges a tendency in later interpretations,
including postmodernist writing, to view the connection in negative
terms. She argues that the negative view comes from a reductive
view of Gestalt theory, shaped around the isolated study of abstract
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form. Instead, she counters “the negative impressions of Gestalt
theory with detailed historical work, revisiting the primary texts of
its early proponents and highlighting its development into a recog-
nized therapy. At a time when graphic design is engaging actively
with notions of interactivity and audience participation, Gestalt
theory offers productive ways of thinking about possible struc-
tures for orchestrating positive human experiences.” This suggests
a useful reassessment of the nature and role of the Gestalt approach
in design.
In the next article, “Indigenous Knowledge and Respectful
Design: An Evidence-Based Approach,” Norman W. Sheehan
introduces a theme that some in design have considered only at a
distance, the theme of indigenous knowledge and indigenous knowl-
edge systems. Indigenous knowledge is defined variously as knowl-
edge that is unique to a given culture or society or an information
base that facilitates communication and decision-making in local
circumstances. It is regarded as dynamic and constantly influenced
by experimentation and creativity at the local level, contrasting with
external or universal knowledge systems generated through institu-
tions such as universities. Sheehan, an Aboriginal designer, educator,
and researcher, introduces the concept of indigenous knowledge as
an ontological concept because it situates inquiry “within an intel-
ligent and intelligible world of natural systems, replete with rela-
tional patterns for being in the world.” With echoes of the dialectical
method of physicist and philosopher David Bohm, he explains that
indigenous knowledge understandings “arise in partnership with
these existent and sustaining patterns of relation.” The goal of the
paper is to promote a more socially responsible and environmen-
tally engaged vision for design. One of the features of the approach
that is explored in the paper is the concept of “respectful design.”
For Sheehan, respect “is based on this ancestral understanding that
we all stand for a short time in a world that lived long before us
and will live for others long after we have passed.” In turn, respect-
ful design “is founded on how design positions itself in relation to
natural systems and the social world.” Sheehan discusses different
aspects of this concept and gives special attention to the process of
conversation or discussion that grounds design in a local commu-
nity and also to the importance of “visual dialogue.” At first, this
article may seem remote in its references and applications, grounded
as they are in Aboriginal culture in Australia. As reading unfolds,
however, one may well begin to understand how closely connected
this approach is to some emerging ideas about participatory design
and co-designing, related to the design of systems and environments
grounded in community—sometimes in this journal called fourth
order design.
The final article is Per Galle’s “Foundational and Instrumental
Design Theory.” The author focuses on the relationship between
these two approaches to design theory and then, based on that
DesignIssues: Volume 27, Number 4 Autumn 2011
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relationship, moves on to explore more closely the nature of
foundational design theory. The initial step is to consider three works
in design literature, classic works by Herbert Simon and Donald
Schön and then Klaus Krippendorf’s more recent book. Though none
of these authors employ the theme of foundational and instrumental,
as Galle acknowledges, he seeks to compare the works in the light
of that distinction. Following a useful and insightful discussion
of these works, the author then discusses the features of a “good”
foundational theory of design. This discussion includes insights into
the nature of a possible convergence of definitions in such a theory.
This essay is a meaningful contribution to investigations of the
theory of design, and the discussion of important works by design
theorists is, in itself, a contribution that should encourage others to
engage in further treatment of important texts in the field.
Following the articles in this edition, we have a review by
Kipum Lee of a recent service design conference held in Boston in
October 2010 and organized by the Service Design Network. This
review is valuable for its contextualization of service design as well
as for its assessment of the recent conference held in Boston. It is
clear that service design is an emerging practice, and one that stands
in need of more theory and reflection. Lee provides an extensive
review of previous conferences in this area held in Europe and the
United States. He identifies key concepts as well as the evolving
themes of practice and theory.
We are also pleased to offer several book reviews that will
interest many readers. Nathaniel Boyd and Jack Henrie Fisher review
Uncorporate Identity, Metahaven by Daniel van der Velden. Kjetil
Fallan reviews Design and Truth by Robert Grudin. Brian Donnelly
reviews Unimark International: The Design of Business and the Business
of Design by Jan Conradi. Jesse O’Neill comparatively and in combi-
nation reviews The Transformer: Principles of Making Isotype Charts by
Marie Neurath and Robin Kinross and From Hieroglyphics to Isotype:
A Visual Autobiography by Otto Neurath, edited by Matthew Eve and
Christopher Burke. Laura Forlano reviews A Fine Line: How Design
Strategies are Shaping the Future of Business by Hartmut Esslinger.
Finally, Erik Stolterman reviews Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of
Things by Jane Bennett.
Bruce Brown
Richard Buchanan
Dennis Doordan
Victor Margolin
In the Design Issues Introduction of the Spring 2011 issue, the editors
made a mistake in the pronoun usage when referring to Ashley Hall.
We regret the mistake and apologize sincerely for it.
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