The Nature of Design through the Lenses of the Sociological Imagination

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the nature of design by positioning it as a major sociocultural phenomenon. The goals are to produce an understanding of design that is general enough to apply to most kinds of design endeavors; to highlight its essence and nature; and to provide a foundation for discussing the issue of boundaries between design and other sociocultural phenomena that are often related to it. A major objective is to conceptualize design at a very high level of abstraction that can inform general design studies. Methodologically, we start with analyzing the process of artification, progress to the project delivery process, and then focus on modeling the core design act. Design is about organizing materiality or substrate and creating configurations (material or social) that have never existed before. We can conceptualize these configurations as models of artifacts that are submitted to the production facilities for manufacturing. The paper contributes a new vision about the essence of design; about its relationships with related social institutions; and proposes a methodological platform for approaching certain traditional issues of the design specialty disciplines in a new way.