Introduction



This issue of Design Issues reminds us that “successive generations
often think they exist under special conditions of turbulence and
dramatic change beyond those of previous generations” (Hobday,
Boddington and Grantham). Accordingly, the collected papers
address a broad range of perspectives on design that, together,
remain intrinsic to the human condition. Walt Whitman once
observed, “There was a child went forth every day, and the first
object he look’d upon, that object he became.” So these papers chart
a seamless link between the physical world of objects and our inner
spaces of feeling and thought. Together, they remind us that we
first make objects then objects make us. As we change the world, it
begins to change us. Moreover, these papers highlight the powerful
and mediating influence that design can have in helping to shape
human relationships or when social cohesion is to be formed then
sustained.

Tracy Bergstrom’s paper sheds new light on the relationship
between Eric Gill and Count Harry Kessler (for production of
the Cranach Press’s fine book Canticum canticorum Salomonis).
Kessler’s earlier patronage of Gill’s fellow Ditchling craftsman,
Edward Johnston, caused a sea-change to Germany’s national
visual sensibility. Whereas Edward Johnston politely bridged the
mediaeval and the modern, Eric Gill’s eccentric arrival in Weimar
raised eyebrows. Here, Bergstrom traces the ways in which Kessler
had to adjust his customary relationship, as a patron, to this now
more willful design presence personified by Eric Gill. Christine
Taylor Klein’s paper on the work of American designer, George
Sakier, describes a quieter but, perhaps, more powerful influence
on a nation’s sensibilities. Though painting remained Sakier’s
passion, he relished the idea that his designs could inject the ideals
of modernism into domestic objects that, eventually, would find
their way into homes across the nation. Just as Bahar Emgin draws
our attention to the ways in which design interventions can revive
the lives of undistinguished objects so does Edmundo Morales
illustrate how everyday things can be invested with the codes of
a social hierarchy. His images of Andean headdresses contain the
remnants of Colonial imposition.

In their analysis of social thinking for empathic design,
Carolien Postma, Kristina Lauche and Pieter Jan Stappers outline
a framework intended to provide designers with a thinking tool
to better understand the user experience. Marc Steen continues
© 2011 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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this debate by arguing that innovation is often driven by techno-
logical developments, rather than by concerns for users’ needs
and preferences. Udo Kannengiesser and John Gero further this
discussion by exploring the ways in which users and artifacts can
interact with each other in order to create dynamic effects. They
go on to suggest that dynamics like this can extend beyond the
intentions of a designer when first conceiving an artifact. Finally,
Hobday, Boddington and Grantham conclude their two-part
paper with an overview of approaches to, and theories of, design
and innovation studies. In this, they first assess the antecedents to
design as a problem-solving activity. This is followed by a reflection
on the indeterminate nature of design and its complex challenges.
They then examine insights from leading American scholars
concluding with a consideration of the relationship between
modern design sensing and the broader context of human-centered
approaches to management.

Herbert Simon once observed that “Human beings, viewed
as behaving systems, are quite simple. The apparent complexity
of our behavior over time is largely a reflection of the complexity
of the environment in which we find ourselves.” The papers
in this issue seek to address this richness and complexity as
it evolves through the dynamic relationships that designers
stimulate between the physical world of things and the inner
worlds of thought.
Bruce Brown
Richard Buchanan
Dennis Doordan
Victor Margolin
Erratum:
In Kjetil Fallan’s book review, Design and Truth, by Robert Grudin,
in Design Issues Vol 27 no. 4, the sentence on page 103 which reflects
the retail price of the Eames Lounge Chair should have read, “. . . (in
my local retailer here in Oslo, it sells for c. USD 9,400 – add another
3,300 for the accompanying ottoman.) Now how’s that for abuse of
power?” We regret the error.
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