9th EAD International Design Conference: The Endless End 20/06/2011
4th – 7th May 2011, Porto, Portugal – Matt and Remi attended the 9th EAD International Design Conference: The Endless End.
The European Academy of Design (EAD) conference is a place for design academics, researchers, practitioners, thinkers and industry representatives to meet and exchange ideas and share new knowledge and insights across the fields of design.
The opening keynote was delivered by Bruce Brown, Professor of Design at the University of Brighton, and was entitled ‘The State of Design’. The capital letters used in the title emphasise Brown’s belief that design is in need of a renaissance, an age of enlightenment, ‘…we talk of the future yet act in the past.’ Brown suggested that the traditional tools of the first industrial revolution are disappearing as we move into the world of intangible design, design thinking, to create a new belief system for Design – one that is fit for the 21st Century. Matt commented that while Tim Brown of IDEO says “…designing is now too important to be left to designers…” it was Bruce Brown’s opinion that “Design is too important to not be left to designers”.
Matt and Remi attended a number of keynote lectures and a range of breakout sessions over the three days of the conference. The themes under discussion in the parallel sessions were:
- locality: the role of design in specific social and cultural environments (case studies), localisation of design and production
- liquidity: design´s redefined and expanding territories
- nomadism: design actively searching for new areas and tools of expertise
- involvement: design as a catalyst for change and progress
- vertigo: envisioning what’s ahead, calibrating past inheritances
- education: how can design be taught in an era of multiplicity, prosumers and open creativity
For Remi a highlight of the Involvement strand was the presentation by Peter Davis from the University of Plymouth, ‘Design as a Catalyst for Change and Progress’, which tied in with Brown’s keynote. Davis gave a range of definitions of what design should and can be – functional, rational, aesthetic, unobtrusive, safe, true, simple, affordable, emotional, social, amusing – and how it can be fundamental for redefining problems and converting difficulties into improvements. Design can play a leading role in change through innovation and risk taking. Remi found the discussions around the role of designers that took place after the presentation even more interesting: Designers can facilitate change by initiating challenges but should they be more educators than facilitators? Sometimes, designers can be considered arrogant, “I am designer and I can change the world”. To overcome this we need to learn how to tell a story. When simply describing a concept, elements are often lost, whereas creating a narrative can enhance the communication of ideas.
In the Locality parallel strand Matt was particulalry interested to see the ‘The Chile Miner Rescue: A Human-Centered Design Reflection,’ presentation by Sabine Junginger of Lancaster University. The session used the successful rescue of 33 Chilean Miner’s in 2010 to highlight different aspects of human-centred design. It looked at how the rescue operation started as an engineering focused problem dominated by technicians and practicalities but how particular human-centred practices were also used in the planning and executions of the rescue operation, ‘…the intent of this paper is to illustrate a design situation in which design approaches and design problems reach beyond products and services.’
As part of the Vertigo strand both Matt and Remi attended, ‘Rip+Mix: Developing and Evaluating a New Design Method in which the Designer becomes a DJ’ presented by Mike Press, Professor of Design Policy, University of Dundee.. This presentation was about how to use the design process as a source of knowledge. It focussed on designing information and communication products and services for elderly people. Like DJs have to know their music well, so designers must know their discipline in depth. During this project the researchers were not allowed to use a human-centred approach as it would minimize the amount of risks taken and innovation generated. The company they were working for was more interested in the process than the 250 concepts generated. Very social elements such as drawing, talks and writing were used The presentation was followed by a discussion which produced interesting comments: design methods are not ‘ours’ but the those of ethnographic, social scientists… we appropriate them in a ‘mashed up’ way. There was a comparison between Craft research and Design research, and Press suggested that craft people are embedded in the world they live in with a focus on users, but designers are out of focus and lost.
The closing keynote on the Friday afternoon was by Jon Wozencroft. ‘The End My Friend,’ not only shared its sentiment with the conference but also shared its title with a 1968 song by the Doors. Wozencroft talked about the future of design – focussing mainly on design education. Both Remi and Matt found this a fascinating presentation. The abstract highlights how, although the world has changed massively since 1968 these changes have not always been applied effectively in design, suggesting once again that this is a discipline that seems to have lost its way.
Other noteworthy parallel sessions included:
- Learning To Design Through Monsters, Fishes, and the World around Us, by Grace Lau
- Lessons from the road: Meaning and Community Identity Examined through the Lens of the Roadside Attraction by Loraine Fowlow and Christy Hillman-Healey
- Good Taste vs. Good Design: A Tug of War in the Light of Bling by Elin Olander
- Seamless Performance: Designer as Mediator for Knitted Medical Textile Innovation, by Jane Scott
- Design & Self-Expression: A Way of Affection Relation between People and Environment Designed by Natalia Bruno
- Co-Creation as Social Innovation: Designing Carbon Reduction Strategies with Local Authorities and Community Groups by Hamid van Koten
- Exploring Luxury in Design: Virtual Learning Environments by Deana McDonagh
- Design for scent: The case of shaping rose scented products in Isparta, Turkey’ by Dilek Akbulut.
The full programme with abstracts and posters cam be found here
