DRS2012 Bangkok Proceedings Vol 4 - Design Research Society

1924 Conference Proceedings
What is the Future of Industrial Design?
As the profession develops and is put under more strain from the surrounding society
many designers are feeling anxious about loosing the core of what they actually are:
creative designers. In a situation were both the industry and the parameters of where and
when design is needed are changing, many designers think that the core in art and
creativity is actually what will remain through all these changes, and hence the area
needed to develop.
For many designers the approach on art and creativity touches on the emotional side.
Emotions, both of the designer and the user experience, have been part of the design
discussions for a long time (McDonagh et al. 2004, Desmet & Hekkert 2007) Much of this
artistic development is also connected to a very critical stance to society and societal
issues, and art (and design) once again, becomes a way of taking a stance. This can be
seen in the work of many current designers, such as Dunne&Raby (Billings 2010) where
design becomes a mean of proving a point rather than a mean of production in itself.
Developing the artistic base
So clearly there was a need to develop new areas in the field of art and creativity. The
Prototyping the Future project included areas such as ‘Interactive sculptures with flow’
and ‘Creativity in space’. The idea of the ‘Creativity in space’ workshop was to look at
how a space can be designed in such a way that it enhances creativity and collaboration
between people. The ‘Interactive Sculptures with flow’ explored how the space around us
influences our flow through it, and how we can enhance movement and interaction by the
forms we create. How does a skateboarder or cyclist perceive architecture versus a
pedestrian or a car? The participants were asked to design a sculpture or concept for a
rideable obstacle; suitable for bikes, skis or snowboards. This obstacle could also film or
document itself or broadcast and include digital options, such as lighting, the internet of
things etc.
As one of the participants put it:
What I think was particularly interesting in this workshop was that it stretches our ideas
of what design is and can be, it emphasizes the importance of form to the emotional state
of the person or people interacting with it, and it puts to practice the importance of
prototyping. (5/1)
In a way what has always been the fundament of design (=art) has now come a full circle
from being the area of opposition within industrial design to become one of the practices
that stretches design further.
Skills for a changing environment
If renewing our own artistic base is a fairly slow process, the arrival and addition of new
skills has always been a very fast way of responding to changes in our environment and
working opportunities.
It is not only the socioeconomic change of the knowledge era and the political pressure to
educate more people to meet the needs thereof that is transforming the universities
today. There is also a growing concern that the skills and attitudes that young people
bring to their roles as workers and citizens are inadequate, as well as a new level of