The Design Culture Reader

Design is part of ordinary, everyday life, to be found in every room in every building in the world. While we may tend to think of design in terms of highly desirable objects, this book encourages us to think about design as ubiquitous (from plumbing to television) and as an agent of social change (from telephones to weapon systems). The Design Culture Reader brings together an international array of writers whose work is of central importance for thinking about design culture in the past, present and future. Essays from philosophers, media and cultural theorists, historians of design, anthropologists, cultural historians, artists and literary critics all demonstrate the enormous potential of design studies for understanding the modern world. Organised in thematic sections, The Design Culture Reader explores the social role of design by looking at the impact it has in a number of areas - especially globalisation, ecology, and the changing experiences of modern life. Particular essays focus on topics such as design and the senses, design and war and design and technology, while the editor's introduction to the collection provides a compelling argument for situating design studies at the very forefront of contemporary thought.

Design culture foregrounds the relationships between the domains of design practice, design production and everyday life. Its focus is on contemporary designed objects and the networks between the multiple actors engaged in their shaping, functioning and reproduction. It acknowledges the rise of design and the role of the designer as key components and key challenges of the modern world.Featuring an impressive range of international case studies, ranging from examples of everyday design such as IKEA furniture and amateur graphic design, to the role of the design professional and the functioning of design within organisations, Design Culture interrogates what this emergent discipline is, its methodologies, its scope and its relationships with other fields of study. The volume's interdisciplinary approach brings fresh thinking to this fast-evolving field of study.

Cities are products of culture and sites where culture is made. By presenting the best of classic and contemporary writing on the culture of cities, this reader provides an overview of the diverse material on the interface between cities and culture.

Design culture foregrounds the relationships between the domains of design practice, design production and everyday life. Unlike design history and design studies, it is primarily concerned with contemporary design objects and the networks between the multiple actors engaged in their shaping, functioning and reproduction. It acknowledges the rise of design as both a key component and a key challenge of the modern world. Featuring an impressive range of international case studies, Design Culture interrogates what this emergent discipline is, its methodologies, its scope and its relationships with other fields of study. The volume's interdisciplinary approach brings fresh thinking to this fast-evolving field of study.

The first edition of The Auditory Culture Reader offered an introduction to both classical and recent work on auditory culture, laying the foundations for new academic research in sound studies. Today, interest and research on sound thrives across disciplines such as music, anthropology, geography, sociology and cultural studies as well as within the new interdisciplinary sphere of sound studies itself. This second edition reflects on the changes to the field since the first edition and offers a vast amount of new content, a user-friendly organization which highlights key themes and concepts, and a methodologies section which addresses practical questions for students setting out on auditory explorations. All essays are accessible to non-experts and encompass scholarship from leading figures in the field, discussing issues relating to sound and listening from the broadest set of interdisciplinary perspectives. Inspiring students and researchers attentive to sound in their work, newly-commissioned and classical excerpts bring urban research and ethnography alive with sensory case studies that open up a world beyond the visual. This book is core reading for all courses that cover the role of sound in culture, within sound studies, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, history, media studies and urban geography.

An Introduction to Design and Culture provides a comprehensive guide to the changing relationships between design and culture from 1900 to the present day with an emphasis on five main themes: Design and consumption Design and technology The design profession Design theory Design and identities. This fourth edition extends the traditional definition of design as covering product design, furniture design, interior design, fashion design and graphic design to embrace its more recent manifestations, which include service design, user-interface design, co-design, and sustainable design, among others. It also discusses the relationship between design and the new media and the effect of globalisation on design. Taking a broadly chronological approach, Professor Sparke employs historical methods to show how these themes developed through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century and played a role within modernism, postmodernism and beyond. Over a hundred illustrations are used throughout to demonstrate the breadth of design and examples – among them design in Modern China, the work of Apple Computers Ltd., and design thinking – are used to elaborate key ideas. The new edition remains essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of design studies, cultural studies and visual arts.

Material culture has finally earned a central place within anthropology. Emerging from the pioneering work done at University College London, this reader brings together for the first time seminal articles that have helped shape the anthropological study of material culture. With topics ranging from the anthropology of art to architecture, landscape studies, archaeology, consumption studies and heritage management, this key text reflects the breadth of material culture studies today. The authors, who discuss field sites as distant as Vanuatu, New Ireland, Trinidad and Soviet Russia, show how material culture provides a new lens for viewing the world around us and effectively bridges the gap between theory and data. Providing the first-ever synthesis of these ground-breaking essays in an easily accessible volume, this book will serve as a comprehensive introduction to the subject and a valuable reference guide for anyone interested in material culture, anthropology, art and museum studies.

Networks of Design maps a new methodological territory in design studies, conceived as a field of interdisciplinary inquiry and practice informed by a range of responses to actor network theory. It brings together a rich body of current work by researchers in the social sciences, technology, material culture, cultural geography, information technology, and systems design, and design theory and history. This collection will be invaluable to students and researchers in many areas of design studies and to design practitioners receptive to new and challenging notions of what constitutes the design process. Over ninety essays are thematically organised to address five aspects of the expanded notions of mediation, agency, and collaboration posited by network theory: Ideas, Things, Technology, Texts, and People. The collection also includes an important new essay on rethinking the concept of design by Bruno Latour, one of the most influential figures in the philosophy and sociology of science and technology and a pioneer of actor network theory, and essays deriving from forum discussions involving designers and designer-makers responsive to actor network theory. Rather than an anthology of previously-published essays, Networks of Design presents work in progress on design theory and its applications. It is the outcome of a live and vigorous debate on the possibilities and actualities offered by actor network led conceptualisations of the relationships and processes constituting design. All the essays, many collaborative, derive from papers presented at the international conference of the Design History Society held at University College Falmouth, UK in the Autumn of 2008.