Source 1
Critical Design
Critical Design emerged from the work of Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby in the late 90’s. In their book "Speculative Everything", Dunne and Raby set up an opposing dialectic between two types of design:
Affirmative design = problem solving.
Design is a process that provides answers.
Critical design = problem finding
Design is a medium that asks questions.
It's mostly design to make us think! It has it's roots in Critical Theory, which emerged from the Marxist critiques of the Frankfurt School in the 1930s. Critical Design creates awareness, framing how we understand, question, and critique the society and culture around us.
"When designers widen their scope towards larger-scale issues --- ethical, political or social --- it requires diligent self-reflection and a critical attitude towards why we design."
---Leon Karlsen Johannessen
reflection
Speculative and Critical Design (SCD) is very inspiring and instructive. I am amazed in the process of learning it. When I see some of the ideas proposed by SCD, I heartily agree with them. When I read many sentences, I will excitedly say: this is exactly what I want. It provides young designers with a practical design theory and methodology that leads us to a preferable future, encourages us to think critically about social issues and draws the attention of the audience.
SCD is based on political and social change over the past four decades, to allow novel approach, design practice needs restructuring. Its aesthetics refer to the science fiction of 1960s pop culture. Inspired by visions of space travel and radical, futuristic utopias. One interesting concept of SCD is social dreaming. It leads young designers to encourage social dreaming and debate by designing. In the Mindsets&Methods theory workshop last semester, we were mentioned in many science fiction novels and films, and we also wrote a science fiction novel in Deign Writing. This is my in like part of the curriculum, science fiction radical imaginative creativity makes us question what will happen in the future innovation.
I particularly like Dunne & Raby's understanding of SCD:
It can be a gentle refusal of what is given by society -- a critique of norms; A shift towards why we design -- a critique of design practice; A practice where the needs of the industry is not taken for granted -- a critique of capitalist culture; Or where critical questions can and will be raised -- a critique of curcurcurattitude.
This is a very valuable quality in the design, and it is also the creed that I will follow in the future design. I will reflect on my design from these aspects and reflect on myself. I will challenge what is given by the society, arouse the audience's thinking on social issues through communication with them, and encourage public debate.
Coming back to my project, my aim is to be to encourage people to debate a new concept. Therefore, the Morden Design process proposed in SCD is very useful to me. Our designers need to complete "pre-design" and "post-design", that is, research (determine the needs) and activities (audience testing and evaluate the result). While traditional design only has intermediate process, omitting "pre" and "post".
To develop and evaluate my project, I will use SCD practice:
Define a context for debate
Ideate and find problems, and create a scenario
Materialize the scene to provoke an audience
Source 2
The Young Designer 's Guide to Speculative and Critical Design