Designerly ways of knowing: a working inventory of things a designer should know - Softcover

Abdullah, Danah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9083449882 ISBN 13: 9789083449883

Publisher: Set Margins' publications, 2024

Synopsis

A poetical list of essential knowledge for designers that both politicizes and inspires

In 2018, the architect and activist Michael Sorkin published the now beloved essay-list "Two Hundred and Fifty Things an Architect Should Know." Struck by the compelling form of this text, Danah Abdulla compiled a version for designers--"a list based on a search for knowledge and a designer's commitment to making the world a better place," as she writes. Abdulla's list includes the experience of scents; how critical theory does not account for the colonial experience; the dangers of seeking out simplicity; visual pollution; and how certain emblems and symbols make people feel. It is meant to be approached as a series of prompts to consider, discard or spark a conversation.
Danah Abdulla (born 1986) is a Palestinian Canadian designer, educator and researcher. She is Program Director of Graphic Design at Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Colleges of Arts, and a founding member of the Decolonising Design platform.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Design thinking has created divisions in the discipline: either designers are too theory driven or simply practitioners. Those feeling lost can easily turn to a language meant to inspire creative production in easy to pitch ways. Led by Antonio Gramsci’s advice that knowing thyself requires compiling an inventory, design critic, educator, and researcher Danah Abdulla pays tribute to the late architect, activist, and critic Michael Sorkin, whose original list 'Two Hundred and Fifty Things an Architect Should Know' inspired this updated version targeted at designers. The iterative list is not meant to be a definitive how to guide, but to spark conversations, to prompt critical thinking and to help designers reconfigure their discipline.

Edition details

• Publisher: Set Margins' publications
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9083449882
• ISBN 13: 9789083449883
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 64