Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

and a fundamental aspect of human intelligence. However, Cross’ (2007 [1990 and 2001] 2 )
analysis of design knowledge tends to advise educated designers and design educators rather than
analyze design activity as a social process in all its social appearances; an approach which is
primarily apparent in his emphasis on outstanding professional designers to study design
activities.
My starting point is that people are designers – some people are very good designers.
Designing is something that all people do; something that distinguishes us from other
animals, and (so far) from machines. The ability to design is a part of human intelligence (…)
But we also know that some people are better designers than others (…) either through some
genetic endowment or through social and education development (Cross 2007 [1999], 49).
For Cross (2007 [1999]), design is rhetorical (bears a particular argument constructed by the
designer), exploratory (not searching for the optimum solution to given problem, but setting off to
discover unknown territories), emergent (solution and problem develop together in flux),
opportunistic (requires an abductive path of exploration), reflective (dialogue or ‘conversation’
between internal and external representations), ambiguous (unfinished or open concepts until the
last possible moment). The design activity aims ‘conception and realization of new things’ by using,
appropriating and transforming existing resources; therefore it has both a prospective and a
retrospective nature. Although designing often includes solving problems, design activity cannot be
generalized/explained as a conventional problem-solving activity in which framings of problem
and solution spaces are usually more tightly bound. In other words, it is possible to claim that
“[d]esign has its own distinct ‘things to know, ways of knowing them, and ways of finding out about
them’” (Cross 2007 [1982], 17).
Depending on the context of its use, the word design can refer to: (a) a process (the act or practice
of designing), (b) the result of a process (design sketch, plan or model), (c) products manufactured
with the aid of design (designed artifacts or places), or (d) looks, overall pattern of products (style)
(Walker 2009 [1989]). In terms of professional practice, design is used as an overarching term for
creative practices in many domains, including graphic design, fashion design, interior design,
engineering design, architectural design, and industrial product design. Design also has close
relations to neighboring fields such as arts, crafts, engineering and mass media. Contemporary
emergent domains of design research also include interaction design, service design and
environmental design (Simonsen et al. 2010), including all forms of digital products alongside
analog products (Buchanan 2001b). Particularly with the introduction of digital media, the
2 Nigel Cross’s theories on ’designerly ways of knowing’ were later collected and edited by Birkhaus Press, while each
chapter in the book dates back to a different period in the author’s thought. I prefer to include the original publication
year of each chapter from his book in brackets, in order to make it easier for the reader to follow the progression of
Cross’ thoughts and make the arguments built on his theories more chronologically substantiated.
80