This article proposes to study graphic design templates, a singular digital material object that underpins a large part of our contemporary visual environment. Based on interviews with original template creators for Aldus PageMaker, this article traces the main steps of their evolution from their creation in the desktop publishing industry to how templates on the web came to differ from how they were originally envisioned. Building on this historical inquiry, this article shows how templates have transformed the practice, aesthetic, and even the role of graphic designers. By inverting the role of the graphic designer, who now must invent shapes for content that does not yet exist, templates may be understood as an extension of the design grid or visual identity guidelines which are also key yet invisible graphic design intermediary tools. However, templates’ digital and deterministic nature transforms their effects and brings into play a constant tension between the emancipation and control of amateur graphic designers. While originally intended as an educational tool, they have instead progressively embodied a rigidification of graphic design layout on the web.
{"title":"Design Templates: Between Empowerment and Control of Amateur Graphic Designers","authors":"Nolwenn Maudet","doi":"10.1162/desi_a_00792","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00792","url":null,"abstract":"This article proposes to study graphic design templates, a singular digital material object that underpins a large part of our contemporary visual environment. Based on interviews with original template creators for Aldus PageMaker, this article traces the main steps of their evolution from their creation in the desktop publishing industry to how templates on the web came to differ from how they were originally envisioned. Building on this historical inquiry, this article shows how templates have transformed the practice, aesthetic, and even the role of graphic designers. By inverting the role of the graphic designer, who now must invent shapes for content that does not yet exist, templates may be understood as an extension of the design grid or visual identity guidelines which are also key yet invisible graphic design intermediary tools. However, templates’ digital and deterministic nature transforms their effects and brings into play a constant tension between the emancipation and control of amateur graphic designers. While originally intended as an educational tool, they have instead progressively embodied a rigidification of graphic design layout on the web.","PeriodicalId":51560,"journal":{"name":"DESIGN ISSUES","volume":"41 1","pages":"38-50"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142875123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Elif Sen Himaki;Ozge Merzali Celikoglu;Klaus Krippendorff
Metaphor has long been a topic of investigation in scholarly design research. Studies across various design contexts have demonstrated the value of deliberately exploring and using metaphors to facilitate different phases of the design process. However, the analytical potential of metaphors has often been overshadowed by their generative use, leaving their significance in the research phase of the design process relatively unexplored. This article aims to broaden our understanding of the role metaphors can play in design, delving into the analytical role of metaphors in human-centered design research, particularly focusing on the insights that users' and other stakeholders' metaphors can offer. We present the rationale for adopting metaphor analysis as a method for design research, drawing on conceptual metaphor theory and evidence from analogous research studies. Acknowledging the natural creativity in language use of ordinary people, we argue for the potential this inherent creativity holds for user research and co-creativity settings. We discuss the value of attending to the metaphors in design research, introduce relevant concepts from linguistic metaphor analysis, and demonstrate their practical application on designers' use of user metaphors. We address the advantages and challenges of adopting metaphor analysis as a method for design research and provide recommendations for designers seeking to instrumentalize metaphors in their design processes.
{"title":"Revisiting Metaphor as an Analytical Tool for Design Research1","authors":"Elif Sen Himaki;Ozge Merzali Celikoglu;Klaus Krippendorff","doi":"10.1162/desi_a_00781","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00781","url":null,"abstract":"Metaphor has long been a topic of investigation in scholarly design research. Studies across various design contexts have demonstrated the value of deliberately exploring and using metaphors to facilitate different phases of the design process. However, the analytical potential of metaphors has often been overshadowed by their generative use, leaving their significance in the research phase of the design process relatively unexplored. This article aims to broaden our understanding of the role metaphors can play in design, delving into the analytical role of metaphors in human-centered design research, particularly focusing on the insights that users' and other stakeholders' metaphors can offer. We present the rationale for adopting metaphor analysis as a method for design research, drawing on conceptual metaphor theory and evidence from analogous research studies. Acknowledging the natural creativity in language use of ordinary people, we argue for the potential this inherent creativity holds for user research and co-creativity settings. We discuss the value of attending to the metaphors in design research, introduce relevant concepts from linguistic metaphor analysis, and demonstrate their practical application on designers' use of user metaphors. We address the advantages and challenges of adopting metaphor analysis as a method for design research and provide recommendations for designers seeking to instrumentalize metaphors in their design processes.","PeriodicalId":51560,"journal":{"name":"DESIGN ISSUES","volume":"40 4","pages":"67-80"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142408875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study challenges the conventional perception of waste as a discarded object devoid of use and aims to redefine its nature by dissociating it from the boundaries of value. To achieve this, the term sslgi (sweeping) is proposed to shift the focus of waste management from relegation to obsolescence to active disposition that retains latent value. This conceptual shift redefines “reuse” in design as the activation of the inherent value in objects. This research also explores the creation of novel materials, exemplified by the extraterrestrial material StarCrete, which is composed of dust, soil, and minimal organic additives, along with designers' use of new materials derived from limestone dust and material-driven speculative design that experiments with synthetic (plastic) and natural substances. These cases illuminate the inherent [re]usability of material entities that are ready for activation in multiple interconnected contexts. From this perspective, we can re-view the role of the designer as [re]assembling existing materials and negotiating various influencing factors. Ultimately, this research demonstrates that transcending the binary perceptions of value and worthlessness allows designers to approach [re]use beyond the confines of the production-consumption-disposal paradigms, thereby decoupling objects from the deterministic use values imposed on them.
{"title":"Value Deactivated: Waste as an Act of Sweeping","authors":"Jeong Hye Kim","doi":"10.1162/desi_a_00779","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00779","url":null,"abstract":"This study challenges the conventional perception of waste as a discarded object devoid of use and aims to redefine its nature by dissociating it from the boundaries of value. To achieve this, the term sslgi (sweeping) is proposed to shift the focus of waste management from relegation to obsolescence to active disposition that retains latent value. This conceptual shift redefines “reuse” in design as the activation of the inherent value in objects. This research also explores the creation of novel materials, exemplified by the extraterrestrial material StarCrete, which is composed of dust, soil, and minimal organic additives, along with designers' use of new materials derived from limestone dust and material-driven speculative design that experiments with synthetic (plastic) and natural substances. These cases illuminate the inherent [re]usability of material entities that are ready for activation in multiple interconnected contexts. From this perspective, we can re-view the role of the designer as [re]assembling existing materials and negotiating various influencing factors. Ultimately, this research demonstrates that transcending the binary perceptions of value and worthlessness allows designers to approach [re]use beyond the confines of the production-consumption-disposal paradigms, thereby decoupling objects from the deterministic use values imposed on them.","PeriodicalId":51560,"journal":{"name":"DESIGN ISSUES","volume":"40 4","pages":"39-53"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142408876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article proposes a model of social design inquiry directed toward shaping shared societal goals. Drawing on Dewey and McKeon, the approach is based on means-end evaluation and communication in plurality. This presents a response to the double challenge of dealing with conflicting aspirations for the future and the current need to balance differences in perspectives. The social design inquiry model provides the basis for meliorism in design insofar as it offers a way of working through these challenges by making use of imagination and deliberation.
{"title":"Design and Making Things Better: Relating the Pragmatism of John Dewey and Richard McKeon in Design Inquiry","authors":"Brian Dixon;Patrycja Kaszynska","doi":"10.1162/desi_a_00778","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00778","url":null,"abstract":"This article proposes a model of social design inquiry directed toward shaping shared societal goals. Drawing on Dewey and McKeon, the approach is based on means-end evaluation and communication in plurality. This presents a response to the double challenge of dealing with conflicting aspirations for the future and the current need to balance differences in perspectives. The social design inquiry model provides the basis for meliorism in design insofar as it offers a way of working through these challenges by making use of imagination and deliberation.","PeriodicalId":51560,"journal":{"name":"DESIGN ISSUES","volume":"40 4","pages":"29-38"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142408680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article proposes a novel approach called breaching-through-service (BtS) that integrates the microsociological approach of ethnomethodology and field-based design experimentation. BtS is service-in-action that is embedded with incongruity. It provides an operational and analytical framework for researchers to breach a social situation by designing and delivering a service, accounting for what occurs in that context, and then acting based on the ensuing interaction. In this way, it enables inquiry and service delivery simultaneously. The BtS approach enriches the practice of studying and harnessing micro-interactions with and for service design. With this, it advances the investigative and transformational capacity of service design.
{"title":"Breaching-through-Service: Accounting and Shaping Social Order with Service Design","authors":"Yiying Wu;Karthikeya Acharya","doi":"10.1162/desi_a_00780","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00780","url":null,"abstract":"This article proposes a novel approach called breaching-through-service (BtS) that integrates the microsociological approach of ethnomethodology and field-based design experimentation. BtS is service-in-action that is embedded with incongruity. It provides an operational and analytical framework for researchers to breach a social situation by designing and delivering a service, accounting for what occurs in that context, and then acting based on the ensuing interaction. In this way, it enables inquiry and service delivery simultaneously. The BtS approach enriches the practice of studying and harnessing micro-interactions with and for service design. With this, it advances the investigative and transformational capacity of service design.","PeriodicalId":51560,"journal":{"name":"DESIGN ISSUES","volume":"40 4","pages":"54-66"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142409021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}