Dear Friends,
Yes, I confess. I was counting design riffles back then. And the origin was
probably one of the larger scientific committee for design research
conferences ever assembled. The purpose was to manage submissions that we
expected to range up to 1000 for a very comprehensive conference on design
research. I must note that the group was selected from people that we had
spotted having made merit contributions on design research. And many people
with good merits were not even contacted since none of us had a direct
contact. The idea was to create a list of Key words for matching papers
with the declared expertise of reviewers. The result was almost impossible
to manage.
The real trouble starts, as Ken said when you start to make taxonomy. It is
irrelevant to note the variety and the myriad of bacteria species. They are
mainly… bacteria, not very elaborated living stuff. The field of
self-proclaimed design activities is too vast, not as vast as biological
beings but vast enough to give some trouble.
I imagine that Ken, after is dwelling in Scandinavia may be very tented to
pay a tribute to master Linné, but the solution must be Darwinian, meaning
in this case that it must be historical.
If we are listing Design activities we should go back when the first
institutions using the word DESIGN presented themselves to the world saying
this is what Design is and this is what we teach and this is what the
people we educate will do. Simple, isn’t it? So, in England something
called the Government School of Design was founded in the 1830’s and in the
USA another something was founded called the National Academy of Design.
Both resulted from the conviction that the academies of Fine Arts of the
time were not doing their job in favor of Art because they didn’t included
an Ethical principle in the outcome of their activities. However both
institutions started to teach Drawing based curricula (the same as the
Academies's but with diferent themes and purposes). The purpose was that
Art could produce objects to be produced, beautiful objects that may be
used by humans and not only contemplated.
That’s the original DNA. It became robust and international by something
called INDUSTRIAL DESIGN very rapidly followed by something called GRAPHIC
DESIGN both conjured in the forges of Drawing Culture. All real branches of
real Design come from there. If you don’t find a connecting line to one of
these you will be dealing with either opportunistic naming or the
adaptation/adoption of the colloquial meaning of the word design.
It is very interesting to find out why we call “design drugs” to some drugs
but this does not mean that the activity behind its production may be
called Design, it is still Chemistry or Pharmacy.
Best regards
Eduardo
PS: That’s why Mathematic is so interesting for Design. Because it is such
a good complement for an activity that in its essence is developed in the
culture of drawing.
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