Critical design in context : history, theory, and practices

Includes bibliographical references (pages 137-147) and index.

Machine generated contents note: -- Chapter 1: Introducing critical design -- Challenging orthodoxy -- Challenging colloquialism: the problem with critical design -- What's so critical about critical design practice -- Why study critical design? -- Researching critical design practice -- 'Critical' in critical design practice -- Industrial design as a discipline -- The structure and approach to writing Chapter 2: History -- A forgotten history of critical design practice -- An emerging critical design practice -- Challenging hegemony -- Anti-design -- Participatory design -- Unikat Design: adding nothing but the concept -- Representative design -- Design Interactions -- Critical Design at the Royal College of Art -- Synergies between precedents and contemporary examples of critical design Chapter 3: Theories, methods and tactics -- Design as a medium for inquiry -- Post-optimal design and Para-functionality -- Rhetorical use -- Discursive design -- The aesthetics of use and meaningful presence -- Exploratory potential -- Design fiction -- Speculation and proposition -- Constructing publics -- Ambiguity Chapter 4: Criticism, function and discipline -- Design Art -- Design art and society -- Function in critical design practice -- The paradox of critical design in commercial use -- Modelling the field -- Design at users -- Directing critique through design practice Chapter 5: Practice -- Associative design -- Speculative design -- Critical design -- Design practice as satire -- The uses of narrative -- Rationality and ambiguity -- Towards a taxonomy of critical practices in design -- The taxonomy as an analytical tool -- Applications of the taxonomy Chapter 6: Critical design practice and its disciplinary contribution -- Summary -- Challenging disciplinary orthodoxy -- An extended role for industrial design: discipline, science and society Bibliography.

"Critical Design is becoming an increasingly influential discipline, affecting policy and practice in a range of fields. Matt Malpass's book is the first to introduce critical design as a field, providing a history of the discipline, outlining its key influences, theories and approaches, and explaining how critical design can work in practice through a range of contemporary examples. Critical Design moves away from traditional approaches that limit design's role to the production of profitable objects, focusing instead on a practice that is interrogative, discursive and experimental. Using a wide range of examples from contemporary practice, and drawing on interviews with key practitioners, Matt Malpass provides an introduction to critical design practice and a manifesto for how a radical and unorthodox practice might provide design answers in an age of austerity and ecological crisis"--