Thinking has always been a characteristic of designing, but design is unable to think about itself. It has never developed its own theories, unlike art. What is called design ? A short lecture in Art Academy of Latvia, on October 6th, 2011.

1. WHAT IS CALLED DESIGN ?
a few theoretical concerns
stéphane vial
www.reduplikation.net
OCTOBER, 2011

2. 1. foreword
2. introduction
3. thinking design

3. 1
foreword

4. « Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter
to me… Going to bed at night saying we’ve done
something wonderful… that’s what matters to me. »
Steve Jobs, Wall Street Journal, May 25, 1993

5. Steve Jobs
October 5, 2011 (†)

6. This presentation is made on a Mac.
Let’s think fondly of him today.

7. 1984
MACINTOSH 128K, first microcomputer for the market with a GUI
the first digital revolution : thanks to Xerox Parc researches
Xerox Parc : depuis sa visite en 1979, Steve Jobs sait que l’avenir est aux interfaces graphiques. Il s’en approprie l’idée. Apple met 5
ans avant de sortir le Macintosh et demande dès 1980 à l’agence de design global IDEO de concevoir une souris 10% moins cher.
24 janvier 1984 : jour de lancement, campagne de communication “orwellienne”, personne chez Apple ne dort les 3 jours avant
Gros succès immédiat mais pas durable, sauf auprès des professions créatives et artistiques grâce à la PAO.
Le problème : 2500 $, soit 1000 $ de plus que le PC. En outre, les logiciels sont moins nombreux que sur PC et les logiciels PC ne
sont pas compatibles, tout repose alors sur MacPaint et MacWrite. Le PC IBM n'est pas aussi facile à utiliser et attrayant mais il rend
plus de services grâce aux tableur et traitement de texte en ligne de commande de Lotus 123 sous DOS.
À noter : depuis 1982, Microsoft a commencé écrire des programmes pour le Macintosh et à croire aux interfaces graphiques.

8. 2007-2011
mobile devices with cloud services
“le mariage d’une application client vraiment extraordinaire avec un service cloud vraiment extraordinaire
est incroyablement puissant et plus puissant qu’un navigateur sur une machine cliente” (Steve Jobs)
the new digital revolution : the “post-PC devices” era ?

9. 2
introduction

10. WHERE AM I SPEAKING FROM ?
Philosophy of design

11. Thinking has always been a characteristic of designing,
but design is unable to think about itself. It has never
developed its own theories, unlike art.
Design is above all a function and practice of thought,
but neither designers nor philosophers have come up
with a theoretical basis for design.

12. Philosophers have limited
their concerns to the Fine Arts
and have considered decorative arts
or applied arts as Minor Arts

13. The main goal of my Court traité du design
is to set up a demarcation line between
design and non-design.
It is an introduction to what
could be a philosophy of design

14. 3
thinking design

15. « Design is a funny word. Some people
think design means how it looks. But of course,
if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. »
Steve Jobs, Wired, February 1996

16. “BEAUTIFUL DESIGNER KITCHENS”
design as a consumer significant
• people say : “it’s (so) design !”
• it means : beautiful, elegant, distinguished, “chic”
• it means modern, recent, new, original, trendy
• it means strange, freaky, crazy
• we are consumers of the significant design as we are for all other things
• the concept of design is not clearly defined

17. Jean-Louis Frechin, designer :
“design is an activity whose undefinition is acceptable”

18. DESIGN DOES THINK
BUT DOES NOT THINK ITSELF
design undefinition can be explained
designers take advantage of design undefinition
design is nowadays trying to enter into the research field
it’s time to invent a critical epistemology of design
design needs theoretical foundations
the task is to think the design, not the designer
not design thinking but thinking design
design as a discipline

19. DɪˈZAɪN, THE WORD STORY
• latinism : designare, « to mark out, point out, trace »
de + signum, « a mark, token, sign, indication, proof »
= to form signs or to sign forms = SKETCH
• anglicism : to design, « to think, to invent, to conceive »
according to some plan or intention
= to make a project = CONCEPT
• 1930’s : first american agencies popularize the expression “industrial design” (R. Loewy)
• 1950’s : Jacques Viénot offers “esthétique industrielle” as a french translation for industrial
design
• 1956 : Association for Industrial Design in Milano (disegno industriale)
• 1971 : the “Académie Française” accept the word “design”
• 1994 : french law “Toubon” wants to replace the word “design” by “stylique” (lol)
• 2000’s : everybody talks about “design thinking” (design driven innovation)

20. DESIGN AND INDUSTRY (1/3)
from rejection to assumption in the XIXth century
• First idea of some marriage between art and industry
1849 : Henry Cole, Journal of Design and Manufactures
1851 : The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, London (Crystal Palace)
• Rejection of industrialisation : against social poverty & poor taste of
industry
1848 : Marx, The Communist Manifesto
1849 : Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (Crystal Palace as “serre à concombres”)
1894, William Morris : « L'idéal du meunier moderne [...] semble être de réduire les riches grains
de blé en une poudre blanche dont la particularité est de ressembler à de la craie, car il recherche
avant tout la finesse et la blancheur, au détriment des qualités gustatives. Vous voyez donc qu'il est
désormais pratiquement impossible de trouver du pain. Et cela, vous devez le comprendre, est un
trait essentiel du processus d'édification de la société de l'ersatz : on impose à toute une
population un ersatz quelconque, et en un laps de temps très court l'authentique, le produit
d'origine, disparaît totalement»
• Assumption of industriy : birth of industrial design
1907 : Peter Behrens, art director for AEG, first collaboration art/industry
1907 : Hermann Muthesius claims some alliance between decorative arts and industrial production

21. DESIGN AND INDUSTRY (2/3)
alliance of design with industrial capitalism in the XXth century
• 1952 : Raymond Loewy, “ugly things sell badly”
• 1970 : Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer Society
• 1971: Victor Papanek, Design for a real world : « ce que les architectes, les
designers industriels, les planificateurs, etc., pourraient faire de mieux pour
l’humanité serait de cesser complètement leur travail »
• 1973 : Ettore Sottsass, Tout le monde dit que je suis méchant
• 1993 : Vilém Flusser : « Qui a décidé de devenir designer s’est décidé contre la
bonté pure »
• 2002 : Hal Foster, Design et crime : « le design est l’un des principaux agents qui
nous enferment dans le système quasi total du consumérisme contemporain »

22. DESIGN AND INDUSTRY (3/3)
the (new) paradigm of innovation in the XXIe century
• Tim Brown, TED conference, 2009 : « From design to “design thinking” »
• XXth century = “small view of design” = “design became a tool of consumerism” ;
designers population as “a priesthood of folks in black turtlenecks and designer glasses
working on small things” (« un clergé de gens en col roulé noir avec des lunettes de designer
qui travaillent sur des petites choses ») only focused on aesthetics, image and fashion
• XXIth siècle = “design is getting big again” = “the application of design thinking to new
kinds of problems” in a new global context with economy of services, sustainable
development, digital technologies....
=> designers must turn back into “system thinkers who are reinventing the world” by
approaching new types of problems with more impact like global warming, education,
healthcare, security, clean water, etc.
• This is the principle of design thinking as a “human centered design”
We can call it “design driven innovation” (Remy Bourganel).
I just call it design.

23. design act
↓
design effect

24. THE DESIGN EFFECT
a theoretical proposal for thinking design
DESIGN IS MOSTLY AN EFFECT
a design act consists in producing a design effect
A DESIGN EFFECT IS AN EXPERIENTIAL EFFECT
a design effect is an event that happens in a user life-experience
un effet de design transforme un usage brut en une expérience-à-vivre qu’un sujet peut éprouver
l’expression UX Design est un pléonasme, le design c’est penser l’expérience
A DESIGN EFFECT IS A CALLIMORPHIC EFFECT
a design effect produces a life experience through the forms
une forme issue du design peut être spatiale, volumique, textile, graphique ou interactive
l’effet de design est callimorphique car il produit une “prime de séduction” (beauté formelle)
A DESIGN EFFECT IS A SOCIOPLASTIC EFFECT
a design effect produces a life experience dedicated to others
il modifie les usages, les manières de faire et de vivre en société, il réinvente le monde
l’effet de design est socioplastique car il transforme les pratiques sociales (“sculpture sociale”)
WHAT IS THE GOAL OF DESIGN ?
solving problems, simplifying life, offering new options, enchanting existence

25. PALDIES
stéphane vial
www.reduplikation.net
OCTOBER, 2011