6.2 Ontwerpgrepen - Universiteit Twente

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Summary
This book is an attempt to develop rules that can provide guidance for
the contemporary product designer in a postmodern society. Somewhere
at the end of the 20 th century, the focus of product design has
shifted from primarily offering functionality, towards experience and
emotion driven product characteristics. According to the theory of
product phases, the design of mature product types will end in a phase
characterized by extended segmentation, individualization or awareness.
In these states the affective, emotional, and abstract product
values become more important. Within this development, the usability,
or utility factor of products becomes less important, in favour of their
significance, or the meaning they represent. At the same time, according
to French philosopher of culture Baudrillard, the image of the product
becomes more important than the product itself.
All together it has become clear that the central idea of the functionalists,
that ‘Form Follows Function’ cannot play its central role in the
development of aesthetics anymore, especially in combination with the
increased importance of ‘visually anonymous’ electronics and information
technology. When we can no longer infer the design of the product
from its instrumental function, the contemporary designer has to look
for other practices for the materialization of his or her ideas. To be able
to look at design in a holistic way, this research tries to find those practices
by analysis of recent design history.
Design history in the preceding period has been dominated by the contradiction
between modernism and postmodernism. While modernism
(or functionalism) is associated with the ‘idea of progress’, postmoder-