You make it and you try it out: Seeds of design discipline futures

Abstract

This paper takes a narrative seam through the design discipline, attempting to explain how design methodology, one of the three types of Nigel Cross' designerly ways of knowing, has changed over the 40 years of Design Studies. Specifically, the paper identifies the point when a ‘social turn’ in the discipline occurred, allowing more nuanced and critical studies of designing, and shifting the balance from an objective (‘scientific’) perspective to one more based on relativist approaches. The paper concludes by noting the plurality of present-day study, arguably enabled by design thinking, and sketches what this holds for the future of the discipline. The references in the paper are mainly restricted to those published in, or strongly relating to, Design Studies.