Hello all,
While acknowledging Martyn's geographical caveat, I tend to view these things - from a U.K. perspective, admittedly - in a simple enough way. Historically, Industrial Design emerged as part of the industrial revolution and primarily focused upon the manufacture of physical artefacts, either plant equipment, military ordinance or consumer goods. Alternatively, Product Design accompanies a shift in the productive capacities of capitalist economies, both technological and consumer focused, and incorporates the design of both immaterial services and the interfaces required to access the capacity for experience afforded by these. Increasingly this has come to encompass the design of interfaces and "experiences" (in two, three or four dimensions) - a suitably vague term that I find ever-more useful.
Hope my two cents helps.
Gordon Hush
Glasgow School of Art
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design on behalf of Francois Nsenga
Sent: Wed 6/1/2011 4:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Whats' in a name - Industrial Design or Product Design[Scanned-Clean]
Hello Miles and colleagues
I am glad you brought this up, it obviously refers, once more, to the
confusion plaguing our field as I mentioned in one of my recent posts.
Since a couple of years ago, I suggested (not in a formal written paper
though) that at University (i.e. researching and teaching) level, we reserve
those categorizations and respective denominations to the practice sector of
our field. At an intellectual bird view rather, we ought to adopt and use
the concept behind the term "artifact", this term encompassing all material
and immaterial human production. The range of this human production is
endless as we all know, and such is the categorizations (industrial,
product, krafts, artistic, graphics, interior, third world, emergency, UG vs
PG, hand or computer aided draughtsmanship in 2D or 3D, etc. etc.) and
respective denominations that individuals or groups of individuals may chose
to focus on, based on the intended specific interest and practice.
In a second move, those particular denominations of meaning and practice may
as well be, eventually, subjected to intellectual scrutiny, if needed.
I leaved it up then to each practice individual and/or group to agree upon
first, and then tell us what are the "specifics" of their respective
practice in their respective "contexts and locations" as you say. Not
necessary an immediate answer, but a beginning at a rigorously reflected
sorting and clarifying of our field. Perhaps in upcoming seminars, fora and
congresses of practitioners in respective sub-fields. For instance, along
the lines of what David Sless has been - and still - doing within the
Communication research Institute in Australia. And ultimately, this may as
well contribute to, and thus make it at last really useful, the completion
of the Design Compendium/Glossary work (i.e. artifact) that Ken and Terry
started designing since a couple of years ago.
Francois
Montreal
On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 1:26 AM, poylmer808 <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi all,
> Is anyone aware of any scholarly writing about the preference for the use
> of the terms 'Industrial Design' or 'Product Design' or otherwise - be it to
> describe professional practices, educational programs and regional
> differences? There appears to be a number of posts on such matters on
> various design forums, and these opinions are important, but is there any
> work out there that addresses the specifics of each, maps or compares what
> each term may mean and its differing perceptions in various contexts or
> locations?
>
> Miles
>
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