Design Anthropology (Edition Angewandte) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3709102332 ISBN 13: 9783709102336

Publisher: Springer Verlag GmbH, 2010

Synopsis

"Design Anthropology" brings together a unique range of cutting-edge design theorists and social scientists to explore the changing object culture of the 21st century. Decades ago, product designers utilised basic market research to fine-tune their designs for consumer success - today the design process has been radically transformed; the user is now centre-stage in the design process. From design ethnography to cultural probing, innovative designers in the 21st century are relying on anthropological methods to illicit the meaning, rather than the mere form and function of stuff. The work offers the definitive guide to the issues facing the shapers of our increasingly complex material world. How has user-experience transformed our understanding of design? And how do leading design corporations, from IDEO to INTEL, harness the insight of anthropologists in generating future visions? Why are new disciplines, like digital anthropology, shaping our increasingly de-materialised product cultures?

About this title

About the Author

Alison J. Clarke is professor and chair of Design History and Theory, University of Applied Arts Vienna and research director of the Victor J. Papanek Foundation promoting socially aware design. Formerly a senior academic at the Royal College of Art, London, Clarke has a MA with Distinction in Design History (RCA/V&A), and a PhD in Social Anthropology from University College London. She is a former Smithsonian Fellow of History and author of Tupperware: the Promise of Plastic in 1950s America (Smithsonian Press), optioned for the making of an Emmy-nominated USA documentary. She is a regular contributor to media (most recently the ground-breaking The Genius of Design, BBC TV), and has authored numerous articles on the ethnography of everyday design.

From the Back Cover

What makes a product iconic? How did IKEA really conquer the home-furnishings market from Sweden to China? Why do design innovators spend more time observing consumers than making new things? Design Anthropology charts the radical turn to the user that has transformed our contemporary object culture. Featuring leading design thinkers, Design Anthropology offers a provocative insight into how different groups, from South London urbanites to Australian aborigines, use designed objects to make sense of their everyday lives. As design corporations go native they now look to us our homes, our spiritual worlds and our intimate rituals, for their inspiration. Design Anthropology is a must-have read for everyone in design, creative industries, sociology, anthropology, marketing and cultural studies and for anyone interested in what is really at stake in our material world. "These timely, thoughtful and well-written essays are essential reading as we explore the changing tasks of design in these new times" John Thackara, Doors of Perception "Alison Clarke's anthology is a must-read for anyone interested in the growing links between design and anthropology. Featuring essays by leading writers working at the intersection of both fields, it is a well-constructed foray into a world where material culture meets design research, where practice and theory intertwine. As designers add social science theory to their box of tricks and theorists seek relevance and impact for their ideas, Design Anthropology is where it all comes together." Jeremy Myerson, Director and Helen Hamlyn Professor of Design, Royal College of Art

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer Verlag GmbH
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3709102332
• ISBN 13: 9783709102336
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Clarke Alison J.