White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 4Chapter 4Design and material culture: an Italian blend4.1 Towards a definition ofdesignSetting limits to the area of enquirywhen discussing design is rathercomplex, partly because designactivities easily overlap into othersectors such as art, fashion, advertisingor communications. We must firstattempt to understand what we intendto study under the word “design”,given that there are many, varieddefinitions of this term (KEA, 2006,UK, 2007). We must also explain whywe wish to associate design productionin Italy with material culture, thusbringing together design productionand those craft-type productionswhich draw on the tangible andintangible cultural heritagecharacterising our local areas, andwhich, as we will try to show, is aspecifically Italian feature.Design and its underlying creativecomponent are certainly a key asset inthe production of post-industrialeconomies, since quality and theunique nature of the productconstitute the variables which providea yardstick of competitiveness oninternational markets, along withtechnology and price. We can think ofdesign simply as an aesthetic-typeintervention aimed at differentiating amass product by identifying thosefeatures which do not affect thefunction of a good, but only the waythe consumer uses it, i.e. the symbolicvalues and the suggestion of anemotional message that the designconveys. In this case design works as ameans of horizontal differentiation ofmass production. In contexts in whichprice competition is a unsuccessfullong-term corporate strategy,differentiation contributes toidentifying specific market segmentsand enables firms to increase theirprofit margins by taking part ofconsumers’ surplus.This kind of design and innovationdoes not necessarily concern theproduct itself but can emerge in thecommunications campaign built uparound the product and/or serviceactivities, seen both as kinds ofaccessory services and as selecteddistribution channels giving a productextra value on the market. Forexample, Flou, a leading Italianmanufacturer of beds and bedroomWHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 94