Art and Design Commons^™

The Impact Of The Internet On Wedding Invitation Ordering, Danielle Dimercurio

Graphic Communication

The purpose of study was to analyze and determine the current trends of wedding invitation ordering based on the priorities of marrying couples and the advancement of technology. Traditionally, wedding invitations were ordered in-person from local, artisan stationers. With the advancement of technology and the Internet Revolution in the last 20 years, modern methods have been introduced, including ordering from online retailers and sending electronic invitations, through e-mail.

This study began by interviewing three professionals in different segments of the wedding industry – a wedding planner, stationer, and online marketing manager. Each provided their expert opinion based on their experience …

Creative Consciousness: Becoming A Reflective Designer, Renessa Ciampa Brewer

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

As a graphic designer, I was drawn to the CCT Program in part because I desired to strengthen my thinking skills as a creative professional. Through being reflective, I aimed to “get more in touch” with my process to better understand it and see how I might improve my approaches. Scholarship on reflective practice in design education and design practice is a growing body of literature, which inspired this synthesis project. This paper looks at Schön’s theories of reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action, models for reflection in the design process provided by Ellmers, Brown, and Bennett, and Reymen, and various reflective practice …

New Grounds, New Challenges? Exploring Stakeholder Research In Service Design, Fabian Segelström

Nordes Conference Series

This is a submission for the doctoral consortium at NorDes 2011. The research described herein focuses on how existing design tools and techniques need to be appropriated when used in a new context – in this case service design. It is argued that the nature of services poses new challenges for designers. A theoretical introduction to these challenges is given, presenting a view of service design as the intersection between the user-centred design tradition and thoughts on service from marketing and management. The specific challenges in conducting stakeholder research for service design are introduced. The research objectives of the PhD …

Cultural Variables And Their Impact On Furniture Design Process In Globalization Era, Ahmed Mohammed Abdelrazik

Nordes Conference Series

It's known that human is a product of his environment. His thoughts, desires and needs formed according to his cultural trends which related to his society. These cultural trends differ from one country to another and depending on

Le Corbusier’S ‘Équipement’ As Pattern For Design Language, Liliana Soares, Ermanno Aparo, Fátima Pombo, Dante Donegani

Nordes Conference Series

This article highlights the autonomy of design language to appropriate concepts such as ‘équipement’ (essential elements for space equipment) by Le Corbusier (1920, L’Esprit Nouveau), interpreted as pattern (subsystems) by Alexander (1963, A Pattern Language). This discussion is involved in a current PhD Research Project in Design, proposing new configurational possibilities for building surfaces in the 21st century. Interpreting the ‘équipement’ rationale, the ‘patterns’ system is presented as design’s response to decline the industrialized city proposal in favour of the liquid modernity (Bauman). As interpretation model we present an analogy between the project 'The Philips Pavilion' (1958) by Le Corbusier, …

Relationships Other Than Use, Janet Kelly

Nordes Conference Series

The people who use a designed artefact are not the only ones who will experience or be affected by it, yet design discourse and practice are dominated by the concept of the user. This article introduces the notion of relationships other than use as an important consideration for design, in addition to relationships between users and artefacts. It identifies some related issues in design discourse with regard to the concept of use and discusses how the concept has emerged in design practice and discourse, with particular regard to participatory design. Different kinds of design relevant relationships other than use are …

Building The Design Laboratory In A Public Cultural Organisation, Sissel Olander

Nordes Conference Series

This article presents the research objectives of a design research Ph.D project in the Municipality of Copenhagen. The aim of the project is to explore and develop an open platform of participatory inquiry and dialogue, within the organizational setting of three local cultural administration units (LCAU), consisting of public libraries and cultural centers at three different local sites in Copenhagen. The focus of the research project is to build a design laboratory, that will suit the organizational setting of the LCAUs, in such a way that the lab, and the methods that will be adapted and explored in the lab, …

Design Practice As A Discursive And Interrogating Performance, Li Jönsson

Nordes Conference Series

This PhD is focused on how design can play a role in engaging people in potential serious issues, or producing forms of knowledge that are still unstable, or controversial. The research objective is two-fold. At first, to engage my practical skills as a designer to further develop the notion of discursive design, this will be done through a series of hands-on explorations that in different ways aim to mediate and visualise the issue of concern. My role as a designer is meant to reveal new experiences, tell new stories by assuming design is about linking the imagination to material forms. …

Regarding Design As A Constituting Practice Matters, Bo Westerlund

Nordes Conference Series

This article explores the use of the two concepts representing and constituting in relation to design practice. Representing and representation are often used to describe the relation a model or prototype has to the end result. In this exploratory article we intend to investigate what impact a change from represent to constitute could have. One inspiration is the writing of John Stewart on the post-semiotic approach to communication. The examples used in the article are from practice rooted both in traditional industrial design as well as co-design. This article argues the importance to see design work as a constituting practice …

Navigating In The World Of Services: Visualizing A System Of Systems, Johanna Nieminen, Tuuli Mattelmäki

Nordes Conference Series

Service design is a growing practice. Designers need new tools and frameworks for making sense the intangible and tangible qualities of services. Customer journeys and service blueprints are among those tools. However, they typically address a specific service or a service package and lack of illustrating services as complex and relational systems. The challenge is to understand what kind of combinations services do and can create. This exploratory article attempts to shed light on this challenge by first explaining the current frameworks, then introducing a case in which these combinations were studied and finally presenting a system experience map that …

Initial Findings On Design And Product Category Expertise In Aesthetic Evaluation, Oscar Person, Dirk Snelders

Nordes Conference Series

What appeals to designers does not always appeal to consumers. Still, surprisingly few studies have set out to investigate why designers sometimes favour other designs than consumers. Through an exploratory study on small-sized cars, we found that an effect of design expertise on evaluations of aesthetic appeal was quite different given an individual’s product category expertise. In short, when people knew little about the product category, design expertise demonstrated a positive influence on aesthetic appeal (design experts rating small-sized cars as more beautiful than laymen). However, when people knew a lot about the category, design expertise showed a negative influence …

Practice Theory And Human-Centered Design: A Sustainable Bathing Example, Lenneke Kuijer, Annelise De Jong

Nordes Conference Series

Within sustainable design, design researchers and practitioners are developing novel design approaches equipped to influence domestic resource consumption in a variety of ways. However, as it turns out, the outcomes of these approaches in terms of their actual effects on sustainability are not quite as high as the desired effects. This is often taken to be a direct consequence of rebound effects or unpredicted user behaviour. In an attempt to overcome these limitations, this article explores the implications of the combination of two research strands, practice theory and human-centred design that may assist designers by going beyond behaviour towards gaining …

The Music Sleeve: Fabric As An Electronic Interface Medium, Ramyah Gowrishankar, Katharina Bredies, Rosan Chow

Nordes Conference Series

In the area of fabric interaction, (also known as wearables or smart textiles), innovation often comes from technological advances. Interface designers, on the other hand, take the role of exploring fabric as a medium for interaction. In this article, we will describe and analyse the design of the 'Music Sleeve' – a fabric controller for a music player on a mobile phone. The development of the Music Sleeve was an experiment in open-ended design approaches. As a case study, it represents an interface solution that emphasizes the functional fabric qualities in the interaction, complementary to other, either more expressive or …

Supportive Tools For Collaborative Prototyping, Willem Horst

Nordes Conference Series

The development of interactive products requires the integration of different disciplines, such as interaction design, design engineering, marketing and R&D. This article explores how these disciplines can be involved in the prototyping process by introducing a set of tools. In the literature, various tools and toolkits are described that support interaction designers in the design and modification of prototypes in the early stages of a project. Although these make prototyping easier for interaction designers, it remains challenging to involve other disciplines in a collaborative prototyping process.

The Images Of The Future Of Craft And Design Professions, Kristiina Soini-Salomaa

Nordes Conference Series

Craft and design form a part in the creative industries. Consequent upon the ongoing transformation of creative economy, craft and design sector is looking for new activity models. The growth of experience economy, welfare and leisure services lead to novel customer needs. The craft and design professionals require new professional models, partners and networks to respond the changing customer needs. The transformation from product-oriented model to process-oriented and customer-oriented models presume novel professional skills. Nowadays craft and design students are tomorrow’s professionals. How the craft and design students’ expectations confront the demands of the operational environment in the future? The …

Political Economies Of Design Activism And The Public Sector, Guy Julier

Nordes Conference Series

In recent years design activism has emerged in alliance with a number of global political issues including responses to Peak Oil, climate change, food shortages, social justice, the digital divide, demographic change, military conflict, sexual equality and orientation, financialisation and global economic recession.

The Forming Of Design Things: Reconciling Openness With The Urge For Completion, Maria Foverskov

Nordes Conference Series

The article introduces my PhD project Rehearsing and Forming the Future with attention on notions of form and completion. Designers of today have entered many fields and new disciplines have emerged such as design anthropology, service design and social design. The designer is often co-designing in interdisciplinary constellations. My interest concerns the role of the designer, her skills, tools and processes when co-visualising, co-forming and co-representing these intangible design outcomes in co-design. I ask questions like: How to apply the designer’s classical toolbox within co-design to engage stakeholders as actors? How can the co-design process be recognized as drama? How …

The Gleaning Studio: A Space For Redirection And Reflection, Tania Splawa-Neyman

Nordes Conference Series

There is a difficult challenge for design practitioners when establishing ways of applying Fry’s (2009) strategy of redirection. Redirection is complex and multifaceted and requires an expansive view of the requirements for future sustainment alongside ways of interpreting these understandings within design process. When redirection demands so much of practitioners, the task can seem insurmountable and a starting point difficult to find. Within this article, I suggest that reflective practice can aid in this pursuit, and through my own practice-based research, offer insights when applying reflective techniques to assist my own redirection. This relational thinking generated the development of an …

Exploring Heat As Interactive Expressions For Knitted Structures, Delia Dumitrescu, Anna Persson

Nordes Conference Series

This article describes a practice-based research project in which design experiments were conducted to explore how knitted structures can be designed with particular emphasis on various interactive heat expressions. Several heat transformable structures, able to both sense and react to human touch, were developed in the textile collection Knitted Heat. The designed textiles serve as references to reflect further on the role of interactive textiles as materials for potential designs. Specific scenarios defined by shrinking, breaking, stiffening, texturizing and warming expressed by the textile transformations exemplify and discuss their potential as complementary for other design processes.

Designing With Smart Textiles: A New Research Program, Linnéa Nilsson, Anna Vallgårda, Linda Worbin

Nordes Conference Series

No longer is it sufficient to add ‘smart’ to textiles to secure interesting research results. We have surpassed the initial stages of explorations and testing and now need to raise the bar. We have thus specified research program in which we investigate what it means to design with smart textiles. What can we design with smart textiles? And how do we design with smart textiles? We now explore how these complex, often abstract, materials can enter traditional design practices and what role smart textile can play in the design of our environment. In this article, we discuss the challenges we …

Designing Anti-Activism: Apocalypse Faster!, Tatu Marttila

Nordes Conference Series

This exploratory article reviews literature on design activism and looks into the ways, how design can be used to bring matters to a head in our society. Sustainable design can be perceived as design activism [Fuad-Luke, 2009], as it involves tackling with policies and behaviors, and pursuing of societal benefit. Literature suggests that design activism can be perceived as design exploration [Fuad-Luke, 2009], seeking to provoke, criticize and experiment [Fallman, 2008]. This text studies explorative and participatory design approach in the context of sustainable consumption. Focus of this article is on a participatory web campaign called Apocalypse Faster! that takes …

Reversing The Co-Design Process: Co-Design Tools For Post-Occupancy Evaluation, Christina Lundsgaard

Nordes Conference Series

Visual tools such as probes and design games are used during co-design events to facilitate a common design dialogue. They evoke new ideas and invite users, designers and other stakeholders to explore and rehearse future opportunities. This "toolkit" and working practices is continuously evolving, but the focus is almost always on upcoming design. Based on an experiment this article investigates how co-design tools can be used as a part of a post-occupancy evaluation (POE). As an initial analytical framework, performance studies are used to distinguish and discuss a traditional co-design process as a proto-performance and a POE as a reverse …

Existing Prototyping Perspectives: Considerations For Service Design, Johan Blomkvist, Stefan Holmlid

Nordes Conference Series

With new design disciplines that challenge the borders of design practice and inquiry comes new possibilities for prototyping techniques and approaches. The basis for such an evolution is a firm understanding of the existing knowledge generated in design and the challenges posed by new design disciplines, such as service design. This study identifies a framework of perspectives for prototyping to reveal what the existing toolbox of prototyping contains based on a literature overview. Going through published literature from the early 1980s and onward, the framework is constructed using the following perspectives; purpose, fidelity, audience, position in the process, technique, and …

The Disruptive Aesthetics Of Design Activism: Enacting Design Between Art And Politics, Thomas Markussen

Nordes Conference Series

The aim of this article is above all to construct a new conceptual framework for understanding how and why design activism in public space matters. The article sets off by providing a literature review of some of the existing theoretical frameworks in design research for understanding design activism. In so doing, I will identify a theoretical ‘blind spot’ in the research literature, which has blocked our view of how design activism functions as an aesthetic practice and not only a socio-political one. To remedy this shortcoming, I then introduce some notions from Rancière (2004; 2010) that enable design research to …

Experiencing, Exploring And Experimenting In And With Co-Design Spaces, Elizabeth Sanders, Bo Westerlund

Nordes Conference Series

The concept of design space has been useful to designers in supporting the act of designing and for reflecting on the activity of designing. With the increase in cooperative design practices, it is time to consider the concept of co-design space. Co-design spaces differ from design spaces in that they tend to be situated in the early front end of the design process (also referred to as pre-design), they rely on the collective creativity of designers working together with non-designers, they deal with very complex challenges such as behavioural change and organizational transformation, and they often point to the embodiments …

Sustainable Innovation And The Issues Of Scale, Pekka Murto

Nordes Conference Series

Sustainable innovation and eco-innovation have become priorities within the area of sustainable design. Focusing not only on production, also consumption and systemic changes have been addressed in order to handle increasingly substantial issues. Consequently, the focus of sustainable innovation has shifted from products to solutions and systems. However, as design has traditionally been a product-oriented profession, adopting operational models that require greater influence throughout the value chain is not necessarily easy. This article explores the issues that the scale of sustainable innovation poses on design and suggests that the concept of environmentally sustainable innovation should be approached more deeply also …

Slow Food Slow Homes: Expanding The Role Of Architecture In The North American Housing Industry, John Brown

Nordes Conference Series

The North American city is dominated by suburban sprawl, that vast formless, center-less, fragmented urban structure that the Sierra Club calls the ‘Dark Side of the American Dream.’ These places are like fast food. On the surface they appear easy, cheap, and cheerful. However, this marketing veneer masks a world of thoughtless design, careless construction, and waste that is bad for both us and the environment. In the same way that fast food disrupts the historically rich cultural context of cooking; these fast homes replace the experientially deep potential of urban dwelling with a shallow standardized product.

Matter Matters: Designing Material Encounters As Triggers Of Negotiation, Johan Liekens, Nel Janssens

Nordes Conference Series

This article ventures from a twofold interpretation of this conference’s theme: ‘Making Design Matter!’. An inseparable twin ‘Matter’ materializes. One twin, ‘Matter’ as to be of relevance, folds in a unity with the other, ‘Matter’ as in to become materialized: Matter Matters. This twin pair operates as a lens through which we explore how design operates in between relevance (ethics) and materiality. The lens focuses on the mediation between these two issues. Looking through the lens, the question arises what kind of attitude in designing we consider to be relevant and reviving for today’s people and world? And in addition, …

Recognizing Paradoxical Identities Of Design Managers, Ulla Johansson, Jill Woodilla

Nordes Conference Series

There is a need for designers with knowledge in business as well as business people with knowledge in design. Master-level education programs for this “in between” area are growing all over the world. We argue that the knowledge and identity of being “in between” is essential but also problematic. There is a danger that, similar to relations between men and (wo)men, the business way of thinking becomes the common ground for (design) management, and the designerly characteristics become decoration, rather than another ground. In order not to suppress the one or the other, we argue for a paradoxical identity of …

Time Travel: A Method For Playful Future-Oriented User Research, Theo Rooden, Paul Eg, Rianne Valkenburg

Nordes Conference Series

This article describes the development of a user research method called ‘Time Travel’. The aim of the method is to inform and inspire designers with imagined futures by consumers. The method should give answers to the following question: How do consumers imagine technological and social developments to have an impact on their personal lives (in a certain domain)? An engaging game concept was developed in a research through design process: generative activities alternated with evaluating mini-experiments. The metaphor of time traveling shaped the design vision by presenting elements such as the suitcase (anchoring the imaginations in the here and now), …