Design theory is a subfield of
design research 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
Design science refers to a scientific, i.e. rational and systematic, approach to designing. An early concept of design science was introduced in 1957 by R. Buckminster Fuller who defined it as a systematic form of designing which he applied especi ...
.
The essay "Ornament and Crime" by
Adolf Loos from 1908 is one of the early 'principles' design-theoretical texts. Others include
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , ; ), was a Swiss-French architectural designer, painter, urban planner and writer, who was one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture ...
's ''Vers une architecture'' (1923),
[Le Corbusier, ''Vers une architecture" (1923)] and
Victor Papanek's ''Design for the real world'' (1972).
In a 'principles' approach to design theory, the
De Stijl
De Stijl (, ; 'The Style') was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 by a group of artists and architects based in Leiden (Theo van Doesburg, Jacobus Oud, J.J.P. Oud), Voorburg (Vilmos Huszár, Jan Wils) and Laren, North Holland, Laren (Piet Mo ...
movement (founded in 1917) promoted a geometrical abstract, "ascetic" form of purism that was limited to functionality. This modernist attitude underpinned the
Bauhaus 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, 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 science
Design science refers to a scientific, i.e. rational and systematic, approach to designing. An early concept of design science was introduced in 1957 by R. Buckminster Fuller who defined it as a systematic form of designing which he applied especi ...
,
design studies and
design thinking
Design thinking refers to the set of Cognition, 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 prob ...
has promoted a wider understanding of design theory.
See also
*
Design history
*
Design research
*
Design science
Design science refers to a scientific, i.e. rational and systematic, approach to designing. An early concept of design science was introduced in 1957 by R. Buckminster Fuller who defined it as a systematic form of designing which he applied especi ...
References
Sources
*
Adolf Loos, Ornament and Crime, 1908
*
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (; 18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-born American architect and founder of the Bauhaus, Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He was a founder of ...
, The capacity of the Bauhaus idea, 1922
*
Raymond Loewy, The Mayan threshold, 1951
*
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 25 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 popu ...
, ''Mythologies'', 1957, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 2003 (in 1964)
xcerpt from: Mythologies, 1957*
Tomás Maldonado, New developments in the industry, 1958
*
Marshall McLuhan
Herbert Marshall McLuhan (, ; July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media studies, media theory. Raised in Winnipeg, McLuhan studied at the University of Manitoba a ...
, The medium is the message, 1964
*
Abraham Moles, The crisis of functionalism, 1968
*
Herbert A. Simon, The Science of Design, 1969
*
Horst Rittel, Dilemmas in a general theory of planning, 1973
*
Lucius Burckhardt, 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, We are the primitives, 1985
*
Dieter Rams, Ramsifikation, 1987
* Maurizio Morgantini, Man Confronted by the Third Technological Generation, 1989
*
Otl Aicher, Bauhaus and Ulm, 1991
*
Gui Bonsiepe, 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 ...
, ''design thinking'', Berg, Oxford, 2011
*
Victor Margolin, The Politics of the Artificial: Essays on Design and Design Studies, 2002
*
Yana Milev, ''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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