Art, Architecture and Design

Design that is effective by way of having an influence and impact on a human subject’s
belief, behaviour, or action is a key concern of designers in the field of visual
communications. Because of these aspects, one discourse that has grown in scholarly
circles over recent decades is that design is a form of rhetoric. Nonetheless, the way that
rhetoric has been applied to design practice itself – as a means of analysing the
communicative function of designed artefacts and to posit propositions for practice – has
remained largely theoretical. The purpose of this paper is to extend an understanding of
design practice’s rhetorical dimensions. Rather than start with rhetoric however, the paper
reframes the discussion by looking through the discourse of “resonance” in design
practice. The paper discusses the results from a series of interviews with internationally
recognised designers on the topic of resonance. The significance of these results is that
although designers didn’t use the term rhetoric, they described resonant design as both
effective and affective – it makes an impact, “touches”, “cuts-through”, and evokes an
awareness of self as a human subject. This paper elaborates on the way that the
discourse of resonance in design practice is chiefly propelled by deliberative rhetoric: that
the purpose of design is to exhort or dissuade through the use of modes of appeal
intended to effect responses from users/readers. In conclusion, the author argues that the
study of a relationship between design and deliberative rhetoric must also critique this
relationship, in order to address the positions that designers themselves take up in a
practice that advocates courses of action for human subjects.

Design as a collaborative process of active participation and design as a commercial service can be observed in relation to the concepts of information and persuasion. This paper examines these relationships in developing a model for collaborative practice in visual communication design education. This is based on the idea that effective collaboration and teamwork in design education extends the boundaries of learners’ creative and professional practice. In turn this has the potential to contribute to the development of active, socially responsible designers and the formation of a broader design community.

Communication design is a purposeful activity that involves human subjects and relations, is tied to action, representation and is context-bound. Furthermore, 'effective' communication design can be understood as accomplishing its purpose in having a desired influence on an individual's belief, values, behaviour, or action, and is a basic concern of the design practitioner. In this regard, design practice knowledge—'practice' meaning both professional situations and preparing for such situations by increasing expertise—can be conceived as being created in and by a particular culture, at the same time that it also creates culture. As design practice knowledge is socially and culturally produced it can also be conceived as a discourse. This paper considers the relationship between design culture, practice, and discourse and proposes an emergent theoretical framework for critically reflecting on communication design as a discursive practice—a practice that both shapes and is shaped by culture and wider discourses, that is both regulated and has the potential to transform its operations.

This article discusses metaphors of resonance for visual communication design and the potential contribution that the concept of resonance makes with regard to enhancing a reader's experience and engagement with design. The concept of resonance is indicated as a contributing factor to effective visual communications, however it is not adequately understood: resonance is elusive, predominantly described in terms borrowed from physics and acoustics and there is little input from design practitioners on the topic. To address this gap, the author conducted interviews with a purposive sample of designers about resonance in visual communication. This paper discusses the interview findings in relation to conceptual metaphor theory. In this context resonance is akin to a physical force, making physical contact and operating on the human body and its perceived boundaries. The author argues that metaphors of resonance that centre on the human body emphasize the participation and experience of readers in visual communications.

Designing for Zero Waste is a timely, topical and necessary publication. Materials and resources are being depleted at an accelerating speed and rising consumption trends across the globe have placed material efficiency, waste reduction and recycling at the centre of many government policy agendas, giving them an unprecedented urgency. While there has been a considerable literature addressing consumption and waste reduction from different disciplinary perspectives, the complex nature of the problem requires an increasing degree of interdisciplinarity. Resource recovery and the optimisation of material flow can only be achieved alongside and through behaviour change to reduce the creation of material waste and wasteful consumption. This book aims to develop a more robust understanding of the links between lifestyle, consumption, technologies and urban development.

One of the more noticeable cultural consequences of modernisation seems to be a fascination with origins and identity, and the reconfiguration of history to suit these demands. In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, this rediscovery and remaking of the past had many dimensions. The long neglected ‘period’ style interior, so popular in early-twentieth-century Britain and America, originated in a desire to return to find cultural certainty in a world of technical and social turmoil. Incorporating antique furniture or reproductions set within a more or less defined historical ‘period’, this way of designing the interior was seen as authenticated by its origins in an idealised English (or American) past.

This nostalgic preference for the ‘period’ style appeared in magazines devoted to collecting and furnishing, illustrated histories of furniture, textiles, rugs and decorative arts, and the expensive ‘period rooms’ erected in many museums. The passion of the very wealthy and their architects to collect and incorporate sometimes very grand antique elements into their homes was much admired by middle class homemakers. Interior designers and architects, department stores and furniture and furnishing manufacturers all profited from this trend. Its historical veracity, cultural depth and balanced aesthetic were contrasted approvingly with the experiments and passing fashions of design-led innovation.

Using the archives of AH Lee and Sons, a leading English manufacturer of luxury furnishing textiles, this paper will examine the aesthetic at work in the period style interior, and particularly the role of the tapestry, one of its key visual and sensual elements. This provided a handcrafted vista onto an idealised past, mirroring the values enshrined in the interior in which it was placed.

Because a commitment to sustainability implies wanting to save the planet, ‘going green’ has for some years now become a target for corporate spin. Creative accounting with emissions, glossy annual reports, showcase ‘green’ offices, celebrity endorsements, isolated but well-publicized behaviour change programs and large but often tainted donations to NGOs, have now become obligatory in many corporate HQs, especially those wishing to conceal or distract attention from their often much larger ‘brown’ commitments or investments. While there are genuinely ‘green’ companies making important progress in reducing emissions, transforming their supply chains and their own behaviour, the rush to look green amongst many corporates, especially amongst those with most to hide, it is argued, is a search for legitimation and ethical 'meaning making' in a field that is being shaped by a larger public culture demanding the 'ethicalization' of businesses. Referring to recent examples and contemporary discussions about greenwashing and CSR, this paper will argue that it is more useful for designers to understand greenwashing in the context of marketing and PR, as an attempt to 'buy' reputation or legitimation, a legitimation best served through recourse to sustainable design. This is defined here as a practice that seeks to reconfigure social and material relationships towards greater sustainability.

Exploring the underlying dimension of behaviour change in terms of consumption, media, social innovation and urban systems, the essays in this book are from many disciplines, including architecture, urban design, industrial design and engineering, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, waste management and public policy.
Aimed especially at designers and architects, Motivating Change explores the diversity of current approaches to change, and the multiple ways in which behaviour can be understood as an enactment of values and beliefs, standards and habitual practices in daily life, and more broadly in the urban environment.

This paper argues that those interested in behaviour change need to make use of both social psychology and history. The aims of 1950s consumerist economic policies were instituted to raise living standards and increase employment levels, whereas today's global consumerism does not achieve either. Using a case study on mobile phones, the paper shows that it is possible to increase the lifespan of these universal products by changing the marketing approaches currently in use by service providers, who 'gift' handsets to prospective customers to win their custom. This has resulted in steadily reducing the lifespan of these products and ensures that only 10% are disposed of properly. By more closely examining the relationships underlying such unsustainable practices it becomes possible to design more responsible systems, and to extend the life and value of the products concerned. Behaviour change thus needs to be 'systemic' in its aims, and involve businesses and designers at a more fundamental level, rather than targeting individuals who are usually unable to make the more significant changes required.

In response to a rapidly increasing awareness of the relationship between human actions and environmental conditions the 1970s saw the promotion and implementation of a range of environmental education programs across the globe. International documents such as ...

As is widely recognised, unsustainable practices and behaviours are now embedded in everyday life and are difficult to reverse. Our rapidly evolving systems of transport, commerce and communication, land-use, buildings and objects, often depend on unsustainable increases in energy and resource use, and are often directly or indirectly damaging to the environment. Specialized design disciplines are unable singularly to respond adequately to the global scale and multi-disciplinary scope of this unfolding systemic crisis. However, a multi-disciplinary approach to the various scenarios and domains of un-sustainability provides a more appropriate response, bringing the large-scale problems of un-sustainability into sharper focus and broadening the designer's responsibility beyond the typical scenario of a single discipline response. In the University of South Australia's new Master of Sustainable Design program a multi-disciplinary approach to sustainable design has been adopted ...