Hi Eduardo,


Thanks for your message.  Whoa though!  You   and IADE supported that
research . The Wonderground conference (which you organised in IADE in 2006
)  asked the registrants which areas of design they practiced to help
identify the number of different fields of design.

My  separation of the different design fields  into  the three realms of
'Art and Design', 'Technical' and 'Other' design used the data from
Wonderground and several other sources. The separation into the three realms
was based on 2 rules: 

1. Was the design field one of the 40 or so fields commonly regarded as
under the 'Art and Design' banner? These 'Art and Design' fields were
removed from the lists first.
2. Did the design work require skills in mathematics? These were designated
the 'Technical' areas of design and were the second group that were removed
second from the lists.
That left a remaining  list of design fields that were not part of the 'Art
and Design' fields and whose designers did not require  mathematics as a
central skill. These I  called the 'Other' design fields.

Another aspect of identifying design fields in other parts of the research
had three parts:

1. Whether people self-identified themselves as designers
2. Whether there was a significant 'community of practice'  in the area of
design in which they identified themselves - as evidenced by discourse,
research,  design practice specific to that field.
3. Whether the publications of that design field used the term 'Design' in
the titles of their publications or descriptions of their work.

As a different dimension of the research, I mapped the number of
publications yearly in English  that used 'Design' in their title  for each
of these three realms of design  over the last 100 years. The sources were
three international 'super' libraries.

This gave 2 reference points: the number of publications and the number of
different fields in each realm.

I then locally mapped the relative commercial running  costs of the
aggregate of design teams/businesses in each of these realms. After
reviewing lots of alternative possibilities, I found that the 'regional
aggregate annual  running costs of design teams' seemed to me to be the best
surrogate measure of value of design business. An alternative was the
'regional aggregate annual  research funding of design researchers', however
this latter biases heavily in favour of Technical design fields for a number
of reasons.

In parallel, I conducted WBS (work breakdown structure) analyses for design
work undertaken for products for whom the design work was publicly
considered primarily a matter of 'Art and Design'  design activities.  This
was done to identify a boundary understanding of the situation vis a vis the
relative balance of design activity of the different design realms.  I did
this in two ways. The first was in relation to the product only. The second
was in relation to the product plus its supporting infrastructure, i.e.
*everything* that needed to be designed for that product to exist in the
world (e.g. the design of its systems for its design , manufacture,
management, delivery, resource needs, recycling/disposal etc).  

All of the above analyses agreed and provided strong support for the
approximate proportions I had tentatively identified between relative scale
of design activity between the three design realms.

Dr James Moultrie of Cambridge University has come to broadly similar
conclusions ( see
http://publications.eng.cam.ac.uk/view/creators/Moultrie=3AJ=3A=3A.html )

We've discussed the origins of the word 'design' before. I understand the
historic roots of the word 'design' via the Italian and in Portuguese and
that there are different understandings in different countries. The
alternative root  of the term 'design' in the English historical design
literature  is as a 'plan',  a 'specification for manufacturing/doing
something'. For me this has seemed more useful because it extends beyond the
visual arts. I can understand that others feel differently and would like
the term design to be restricted to some mix of the 'Art and Design' fields.
The reality, however, is that a much larger number of people in fields
outside the 'Art and Design' realm have a long history of using the term
'design' to apply to their work. There are also advantages with this
noun-based definition of 'design'. For example, it then easily follows that
'a designer' is someone who creates such plans/specifications to make/do
things, and the activity of 'design' (verb)  is the activity of creating
such plans and specifications.  The evidence of the literature seems to be
that this noun-based  is the dominant assumed understanding of both
designers and design researchers writing in English, except when you ask
them to define design! I've found this noun-based definition of design to be
the most epistemologically straightforward. It  is easy to understand and
state, and seems to be the assumed definition in widest use across all
design fields in English. I can understand why you differ in Portugal - it
makes good sense.

I'd like to remind readers of this email that because of a lack of
institutional funding for publishing in journals and conferences, I’m now
publishing my research and analyses direct to the public domain. This email
describes some of this research. I claim moral ownership of this material,
the research and research findings and ask that people reference and credit
it appropriately if they use it in their own research and publications.

Best wishes,
Terry
==
Dr Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
PhD, B.A. (Hons) Eng, P.G.C.E
School of Design and Art, Curtin University, Western Australia
Psychology and Social Science, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia
Honorary Fellow, IEED, Management School, Lancaster University, UK

PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks, Western Australia 6030
[log in to unmask]   +61 (0)4 3497 5848
==





-----Original Message----- 
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eduardo
Corte-Real
Sent: Wednesday, 13 June 2012 12:07 AM
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: Re: Open the Pod Doors, Hal. Was Terry's 1,2,3 of design methods.

Dear Terry,
Again the particularity of English tend to blur your arguments.
The fact that design designates both a common human activity and a
discipline allows you (and others) to do it. What you surreptitiously
designate as technical design is nothing but engineering and as such should
stay.
There is no doubt in what angewandte kunst is, for instance (there is the
word kunst in it).
Design was a fancy word that the world adopted, but not to designate all
types of projects. In Portuguese, for instance substituted "Desenho
Industrial" or "Artes Gráficas". This happened because it simply looked like
there was enough common knowledge to share in several arts of producing mass
objects that, in education and professional live could be abridged by the
word Design. Also Architecture is never designated as Design whereas in
English its projects are easily designated as architectural designs. In
Portuguese this would be a blasphemy.
One of the most interesting facts of this international dissemination is the
substitution of Disegno by Design, but our Italian colleagues may have
better ideas about it.
Cheers,
Edward Royal-Court
IADE- Creative University, Lisbon
4, Av. King Charles the first, 1200-649 Lisbon

PS: When, as Portuguese I play the Blues, I don't think that I might have
the blues (be sad) or that I'm seeing something blue Em 12-06-2012 16:13,
Terence Love escreveu:
> To Martin, Robin, Francois, Derek, Gunnar and all,
>
> Thank you for your comments and insights.
>
> Martin,
>
> Thank you for reminding me that art-based approaches remain useful in 
> some areas of design.
>
> I've worked across several areas of design so I come across many 
> different approaches. It seems  helpful to be aware other design 
> approaches are more useful in other areas of design.
>
> In your earlier email to me, it seemed from how you responded that you
were
> thinking about  'solution-space analysis' in an odd  way.   My next email
> described it in more detail in terms of  a design situation (book 
> cover
> design) in which art-based approaches have been more commonly used.
>
> Your reaction and that of Robin surprised me as you seemed to be 
> arguing that the only way to design was via art-based methods.
>
> This seemed to echo the  literature in design which has had a 
> parochiality in which authors in each design field have often seemed 
> to assume that field and its methods are the  only 'true' approach to
design.
>
> That's a bit difficult as there are a lot of very different design 
> fields! I feel it's useful to take an overview of the relative balance 
> of design fields. In  the best estimates I've come across (mine and 
> James Moultrie from Cambridge Uni), the Art and Design fields cover 
> around 5% of the total design work undertaken. The remaining 95% is 
> divided between the technical design fields and other design fields 
> that are neither technical nor 'art and design' (e.g.  education
curriculum design).
>
> This balance  in design fields can be seen if you look at the design 
> of
> (say) an iPhone or iPad in which the design work undertaken by Apple 
> that would typically be associated with Art and Design (i.e appearance 
> and
> interface) may be only about 1% of the total design work needed for 
> each product.
>
> Recent reports of Apple's design processes that the design approach 
> used by Apple for the visual aspects of these devices is closer to the 
> engineering product design methods of the 60s rather than  'creative
art'/'empathic'
> design methods. Perhaps others with experience of Apple could comment 
> better.
>
> I understand the benefits of art-based design approaches in some areas 
> of 'Art and Design' design fields. It's clear those working in areas 
> of design different from 'Art and Design' are also aware of art-based 
> approaches to design  and their benefits and shortfalls. It's less 
> obvious those working in 'Art and Design' areas of design are 
> similarly aware  of the design approaches used in other areas of design
and their benefits and limitations.
>
> My earlier posts were intended to help bridge this gap.
>
> Best wishes,
> Terry
> ==
> Dr Terence Love
> Love Design and Research
> PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
> Western Australia 6030
> [log in to unmask]
> www.love.com.au
> +61 (0)4 3497 5848
> =
>