Framing the Temporal Territory of Inclusivity: Cultural Reflections on Finnish Design Heritage

This paper attempts to explore the temporal dimension in inclusive design by addressing
concepts of collective memory and design heritage. This attempt seeks a certain
perspective of inclusive design that incorporates past and future generations and
exceeds temporal boundaries. Through a metaphoric use of Henry Dreyfuss’ anatomical
drawings of society’s average man and woman, Joe and Josephine, the paper
introduces the developing social emphasis on human factors in design decisions. In this
context, the collective memory is shown as an inspiring and insightful perspective from
which to employ social identities with a temporal background in inclusive design. Icons,
due to their cultural significance and durability, are shown as an efficient framework to
analyse heritage’s role in the embodiment of collective memory and its intergenerational
transmittance to social forms of identity.

The theoretical part is followed by the heritage management practices of the iconic
Finnish furniture design company Artek. Establishing a link between the notion of
product longevity and inclusive design, these case practices are presented as an
operational platform to present the paper’s main concern. According to this, placing
inclusive design in a broad temporal context leads to the emergence of unprecedented
interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological enhancement of inclusive design.

Include Asia 2013: Global Challenges and Local Solutions in Inclusive Design, Hong Kong

Retracing an Evolution of Meanings for Design-Driven Innovation

In this paper we explore how to enrich design-driven innovation by considering the dynamic nature of such innovation as a result of history and evolution. Designdriven innovation takes distance from users in their  current context, but instead proposes radical new  meanings to users that address new potential needs.  Here we look at how design-driven innovation can  be based on a thorough understanding of a product/ service’s current meanings and lost meanings of its  predecessor(s). We investigate this assertion with an  action oriented case study using a research through  design approach. Within the context of recorded music,  and using script analysis theory to define meaning, we  studied the evolution of album covers. As a result,  we were able to come up with two radical meaning  innovations for album covers. We conclude that the  investigation of the evolution of meaning of a series of  products/services –from the past up to the present–  can help designers to depart from current meanings  more radically, and more purposefully. We thus hope  to inspire design to go beyond studying meanings in  temporal isolation, taking into account meaning as  a result of history and evolution for the purpose of  design-driven innovation.  

Design and semantics of form and movement DeSForM 2013

HOW DESIGN THEORIES SUPPORT CREATIVITY – AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

In this paper we analyse the relationship between creativity issues and design theory. Even if these two notions apparently correspond to two different academic fields (psychology, cognitive science and management for creativity; engineering science and logic for design theory), they appear as deeply related when it comes to innovation management. Analyzing three historical moments of design theory building (ratio method in 1850s catching up Germany, 20th century systematic design and 1920s Bauhaus theory), we show that there is a dialectical interplay that links creativity and design theory, articulated on the notion of "fixation effect": creativity identifies fixation effects, that become the targets of new design theories; design theories invent models of thought to overcome them - in turn these design theories might also create new fixation effects that will then be designated by creativity studies. This dialectical interplay leads to regularly invent new ways of managing innovation, ie new ways of managing knowledge, processes and organisations for innovating. We use this framework to analyse recent trends in creativity and design theories.

ICDC2012 Glasgow

CREATIVITY IN CAR DESIGN – THE BEHAVIOUR AT THE EDGES

The paper is developed from a longer evaluation of the history of car design. This larger evaluation used statistical processes for investigating the direction of history. Rather than looking at the way that design thinking and paradigms have become established in car design, the paper takes a sideways look at the variations and quirky cars that have been built, categorising them. The paper ends with a brief look at how and why novelty might become innovation and hence alter the course of the product history. This is where the novelty demonstrates significant advantages for the customer and manufacturer.

ICDC2012 Glasgow

The Value of Cultural Identity in Design: An examination of Mexican designers practicing industrial design in the United States

One of the more recent buzzwords associated with design is empathy.  How better to design
for a particular user than to experience life through the eyes, ears, and soul of the user?
Most would argue there is no better way to truly understand the intended target of a new
hi-tech gadget or a bare bones one-off product that enhances the life of an individual. The
author does not disagree with this assessment, but does contend that there may be an
overlooked component, the designer himself/herself, that can inherently make them more in
tune with a user or in tune with what the user needs. This overlooked component is cultural
identity and cultural upbringing. This cultural identity issue is particularly interesting in
the United States where a July 2010 report by the Census Bureau states that the U.S.
Hispanic population grew by 3.1% in 2009 to 48.4 million people. Those 48.4 million
people made up 15.8% of the total U.S. population. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, these
numbers grew to 50.5 million or 16.3% of the population. To a designer, this growth means
new design opportunities for new markets with different needs and expectations, but still
within the confines and context of the broader American culture. My exploratory paper
looks to further explore both the role of cultural background of the designers themselves in
the design process and explore possible benefits of their backgrounds relative to Industrial
Design and the U.S. Hispanic population. Finally, this paper expands on the research
already started on Latino/Hispanic Industrial Designers practicing design in the United
States.

DRS 2012 Bangkok

Shaping a Case in Cultural Product Design for City Marketing: Product storytelling for the former Tainan State Magistrate

Promoting tourism by attracting the interest of people to the local culture,
particularly through consuming experiences of cultural products, is a
current trend in urban competitiveness. Cultural products are popular
instruments representing local culture. They translate messages, narrate
memories and historical events, and establish an emotional connection with
people. The present paper explores the possibility of using cultural products
as a city marketing strategy for the former Tainan State Magistrate
Residence, which can be integrated with other cultural zones to represent
Tainan City. The Tainan City government registered it as a city-level
historical heritage site and completed its restoration and reuse plan in 2000.
However, no practical marketing strategy has been formulated to promote
the site and to raise cultural awareness among both locals and tourists. The
present study adopts an empirical case generated from an outing course: a
one-day cultural learning tour involving 61 student participants in the
former Tainan State Magistrate Residence. Many rich identifiable cultural
features were derived from the experience of the participants, which were
transformed into unique and irreplaceable cultural product ideations. The
findings of the case study provide a clear understanding of the dynamic
relationship among cultural products, city heritage, and city marketing,
which strengthens the potential of cultural storytelling through the design of
cultural products for city image promotion and urban regeneration. They
provide practical designers, urban planners, and policy makers a view of
the importance of cultural communication media through products.

DRS 2012 Bangkok

A Home for Modern Life: Educating taste in 1940s Sweden

This paper focuses on how interior decoration and taste was seen and taught in relation to
the vision of the ideal home in 1940s Sweden. Two phenomena that are focused on are
surveys of how people actually lived, and the attempts made to alter that way of living. The
activities of Svenska Slöjdföreningen (SSF, the Swedish Society of Industrial Design) is
used as a prism for discerning the discourse on domestic interior reform, and the study
consists of a close reading and analysis based on archival material and publications linked
to SSF. Part of the archival material consists of survey protocols and photograph, of
Swedish homes, from a survey into “dwelling habits” initiated by the Association of
Swedish Architects (SAR) and the SSF. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, these kinds of
surveys were made in order to analyse the standard of living, and the usage of homes and
furniture with the aim to find adequate ways of building better housing, of producing better
furniture, and of educating people to be more modern and enlightened consumers and
home-makers. Based on these findings, courses were given on how to furnish and decorate
the home. Through courses in how to furnish and decorate the home, the ideal home was to
become real. I mean that the concept of “taste” was almost as important as the concept of
“home” in the vision of what modern Swedish society should be like, but that manifesting
“good taste” in the home in the 1940s meant something more than merely creating an
aesthetically pleasing or beautiful interior. Taste was, above all, seen as an indicator of the
degree of modernity and social awareness of people.

DRS 2012 Bangkok