Design Anthropology: Object Culture in the 21st Century (Edition Angewandte)

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? Front Matter....Pages 1-7 Introduction....Pages 9-13 Front Matter....Pages 15-15 Poetic Observation: What Designers Make of What They See....Pages 16-32 Prototyping the Social: Temporality and Speculative Futures at the Intersection of Design and Culture....Pages 33-44 The ethnography in design....Pages 45-55 Criminality and Creativity: What’s at Stake in Designing Against Crime?....Pages 56-71 Front Matter....Pages 73-73 The Anthropological Object in Design: From Victor Papanek to Superstudio....Pages 74-87 Designing Ourselves....Pages 88-99 Objects in Sociology....Pages 100-116 Coloring Cars: Customizing Motor Vehicles in the East of the Australian Western Desert....Pages 117-127 Front Matter....Pages 129-129 Materials and Design....Pages 130-141 Consuming IKEA: Inspiration as Material Form....Pages 142-153 ‘Erotic Needlework’: Vernacular Designs on the 21st Century Market....Pages 155-168 Functioning Forms / Anti-Design....Pages 169-181 Front Matter....Pages 183-183 Valuable to Values: How ‘User Research’ Ought to Change....Pages 184-201 The Digital as Para-world: Design, Anthropology, and Information Technologies....Pages 202-211 31m 2 and Style....Pages 212-228 Technology for the Future, Design for the Present? Reflections on the Ambient Assisted Living Technology Industry....Pages 229-241 Back Matter....Pages 244-256 4e de couv.: 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