Dear Terry

I cannot immediately see the logic of some points you make and will therefore allow myself some time to reflect, and follow up the references you provide.

I remain confused about the point if a definition (or description as Ken points out) states:

Design is the human power of conceiving, planning, and making
products that serve human beings in the accomplishment of their individual
and collective purposes

... then I can't understand how this description does not explicitly state a requirement to conceive and plan the making and consuming of the sandwich (whoever does the different parts of the description). If your lunch is not conceived and planned, what cognitive skills (yours or others) have been used to create the circumstances to make the product either before or after it enters your body? If you are just eating the sandwich (not having made it), you may only fulfilling part of the description offered by Buchanan and I would not call that design, though if you acknowledge the need to conceive of and plan the time you might undertake the act of eating, having identified what a sandwich is, this might then justify the use of design to describe the link that has happened between different people.

As an aside, the division of labour, in this sense, is part of how graphic design grew in the mid-twentieth century.

But I think design in the way Buchanan describes it, is useful for individual or collective pursuit.

I acknowledged earlier the Buchanan's description had limitations, and there is no explicit indicator of quality, unless you consider 'serve human need' as one indicator (but that opens up a whole other realm of interpretation). If the design does not serve a human need, perhaps it is not worthy of being part of a description of design and I revert back to an earlier point that if one part of Buchanan's description is missing then maybe design is not adequately described and has not happened.

Unfortunately Terry, I need to bow out of the discussion at this point due to other responsibilities, but will watch with interest if a further thread about definition emerges, as Ken proposes. Thanks for the time you have taken to respond to my points.


Regards, Robert.


Dr Robert Harland | Lecturer | Learning & Teaching Coordinator for School of the Arts | School of the Arts, English and Drama | Loughborough University | Recent publications | Harland, R. G., 2012. Towards an integrated pedagogy of graphics in the United Kingdom. Iridescent: Icograda Journal of Design Research, 2012, 2 (1). https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/handle/2134<https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/handle/2134/11349>

On 01/03/2013 01:04, "Terence Love" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

Eating lunch results in creating products inside me that serve me (as a
human being) in the accomplishment of my individual and collective
purposes. Buchanan's definition doesn't explicitly require that I do any
conceiving as well, or planning


-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------