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.
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
Accessing your eBook through Kortext
Once purchased, you can view your eBook through the Kortext app, available to download for Windows, Android and iOS devices. Once you have downloaded the app, your eBook will be available on your Kortext digital bookshelf and can even be downloaded to view offline anytime, anywhere, helping you learn without limits.
In addition, you'll have access to Kortext's smart study tools including highlighting, notetaking, copy and paste, and easy reference export.
To download the Kortext app, head to your device's app store or visit https://app.kortext.com to sign up and read through your browser.
NB: eBook is only available for a single-user licence (i.e. not for multiple / networked users).
