Design theory is a subfield of
design research
Design research was originally constituted as primarily research into the process of design, developing from work in design methods, but the concept has been expanded to include research embedded within the process of design, including work concer ...
concerned with various theoretical approaches towards understanding and delineating design principles, design knowledge, and design practice.
History
Design theory has been approached and interpreted in many ways, from designers' personal statements of design principles, through constructs of the
philosophy of design to a search for a
design science.
The essay "Ornament and Crime" by
Adolf Loos
Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos (; 10 December 1870 – 23 August 1933) was an Austrian and Czechoslovak architect, influential European theorist, and a polemicist of modern architecture. He was an inspiration to modernism and a widely- ...
from 1908 is one of the early 'principles' design-theoretical texts. Others include
Le Corbusier's ''Vers une architecture'' (1923),
[Le Corbusier, ''Vers une architecture" (1923)] and
Victor Papanek
Victor Josef Papanek (22 November 1923 – 10 January 1998) was an Austrian-born American designer and educator, who became a strong advocate of the socially and ecologically responsible design of products, tools, and community infrastructures ...
's ''Design for the real world'' (1972).
In a 'principles' approach to design theory, the
De Stijl
''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a body ...
movement (founded in 1917) promoted a geometrical abstract, "ascetic" form of purism that was limited to functionality. This modernist attitude underpinned the
Bauhaus
The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...
movement (1919 onwards). Principles were drawn up for design that were applicable to all areas of modern aesthetics.
For an introduction to the philosophy of design see the article by Per Galle
at the Royal Danish Academy.
An example of early design science was
Altshuller's ''Theory of inventive problem solving'', known as
TRIZ
TRIZ (; russian: теория решения изобретательских задач, ', lit. "theory of inventive problem solving") is “the next evolutionary step in creating an organized and systematic approach to problem solving. The deve ...
, which originated in the Soviet Union in the 1940s.
Herbert Simon's 1969 ''The sciences of the artificial''
developed further foundations for a science of design. Since then the further development of fields such as
design methods
Design methods are procedures, techniques, aids, or tools for designing. They offer a number of different kinds of activities that a designer might use within an overall design process. Conventional procedures of design, such as drawing, can be reg ...
,
design research
Design research was originally constituted as primarily research into the process of design, developing from work in design methods, but the concept has been expanded to include research embedded within the process of design, including work concer ...
,
design science,
design studies and
design thinking
Design thinking refers to the set of cognitive, strategic and practical procedures used by designers in the process of designing, and to the body of knowledge that has been developed about how people reason when engaging with design problems.
Des ...
has promoted a wider understanding of design theory.
See also
*
Design history
Design history is the study of objects of design in their historical and stylistic contexts. With a broad definition, the contexts of design history include the social, the cultural, the economic, the political, the technical and the aesthetic. D ...
*
Design research
Design research was originally constituted as primarily research into the process of design, developing from work in design methods, but the concept has been expanded to include research embedded within the process of design, including work concer ...
*
Design science
References
Sources
*
Adolf Loos
Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos (; 10 December 1870 – 23 August 1933) was an Austrian and Czechoslovak architect, influential European theorist, and a polemicist of modern architecture. He was an inspiration to modernism and a widely- ...
, Ornament and Crime, 1908
*
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who, along with Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one ...
, The capacity of the Bauhaus idea, 1922
*
Raymond Loewy, The Mayan threshold, 1951
*
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popula ...
, ''Mythologies'', 1957, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 2003 (in 1964)
xcerpt from: Mythologies, 1957*
Tomás Maldonado, New developments in the industry, 1958
*
Marshall McLuhan, The medium is the message, 1964
*
Abraham Moles
Abraham Moles (19 August 1920 – 22 May 1992) was a pioneer in information science and communication studies in France, He was a professor at Ulm school of design and University of Strasbourg. He is known for his work on kitsch.
Biography
Mo ...
, The crisis of functionalism, 1968
*
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American political scientist, with a Ph.D. in political science, whose work also influenced the fields of computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. His primary ...
, The Science of Design, 1969
*
Horst Rittel
Horst Wilhelm Johannes Rittel (14 July 1930 – 9 July 1990) was a design theorist and university professor. He is best known for popularizing the concept of ''wicked problem'', but his influence on design theory and practice was much wider.
...
, Dilemmas in a general theory of planning, 1973
*
Lucius Burckhardt
Lucius Burckhardt (March 12, 1925 in Davos – August 26, 2003 in Basel) was a Swiss sociologist and economist. He was an important thinker in Architectural theory and Design theory
Design theory is a subfield of design research concerned wit ...
, design is invisible, 1980
* Annika Frye, Design und Improvisation: Produkte, Prozesse und Methoden, transcript, Bielefeld, 2017
* Maurizio Vitta, The Meaning of Design, 1985
*
Andrea Branzi
Andrea Branzi (, born November 30, 1938) is a Florence-born Italian architect and designer. He currently lives and works in Milan and was a professor and chairman of the School of Interior Design at the Polytechnic University of Milan until 2009.
...
, We are the primitives, 1985
*
Dieter Rams
Dieter Rams (born 20 May 1932) is a German industrial designer and retired academic who is closely associated with the consumer products company Braun, the furniture company Vitsœ, and the functionalist school of industrial design. His unobtru ...
, Ramsifikation, 1987
* Maurizio Morgantini, Man Confronted by the Third Technological Generation, 1989
*
Otl Aicher, Bauhaus and Ulm, 1991
*
Gui Bonsiepe
Gui Bonsiepe gɪː ˈbo˘nsɪːpe˘(born 23 March 1934) is a German designer, teacher and writer. Especially in South America and Germany, his publications are considered standards of design theory.
Life
Gui Bonsiepe was born in Glücksburg, ...
, On Some virtues of Design
* Claudia Mareis, design as a knowledge culture, 2011
*
Bruce Sterling,''today'' Tomorrow composts, 2005
*
Tony Fry, ''Design'' Beyond the Limits, 2011
* Tom Bieling, Design (&) Activism – Perspectives on Design as Activism and Activism as Design. Mimesis, Milano, 2019, ISBN 978-88-6977-241-2
*
Nigel Cross
Nigel Cross (born 1942) is a British academic, a design researcher and educator, Emeritus Professor of Design Studies at The Open University, United Kingdom, where he was responsible for developing the first distance-learning courses in design in t ...
, ''design thinking'', Berg, Oxford, 2011
*
Victor Margolin, The Politics of the Artificial: Essays on Design and Design Studies, 2002
*
Yana Milev
Yana Milev is a German cultural theorist, sociologist, ethnographer, and curator.
Life
Yana Milev was born in Leipzig, East Germany, the first child of the Bulgarian physician and anthropologist Gancho Milev, who had immigrated to the GDR in t ...
, ''D.A.: A Transdisciplinary Handbook of Design Anthropology'', 2013
* Michael Schulze, concept and concept of the work. The sculptural design in architectural education, Zurich vdf, Hochschulverlag AG at the ETH Zurich, 2013,
*
Dieter Pfister, Atmospheric style. On the importance of atmosphere and design for a socially sustainable interior design, Basel, 2013,
* Tim Parsons, Thinking: Objects, Contemporary Approaches to Product Design (AVA Academia Advanced), Juli 2009,
External links
* http://backspace.com/notes/2009/07/design-manifestos.php
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