UCLA Department of Design | Media Arts Desma 10 | Design Culture - an Introduction Professor Erkki Huhtamo T.A.s Fall Quarter 2008 http://classes.design.ucla.edu/Fall08/10/index.html Syllabus: Design Culture - an Introduction DESCRIPTION Design is a powerful force in contemporary society and culture. It surrounds us whatever we do and wherever we go. It has an impact on us, whether we are aware of it or not. It is not easy to provide a definition for all the things the word “design” is supposed to denote. It is becoming increasingly difficult – for some, impossible - to say where design ends and phenomena like art, architecture and popular media begin. One thing is certain: design is not just about creating “cool looking" things; it is about much more. Among other things, it is an ideology that affects our ways of seeing the world. It is also a form of communication - by creating or using certain designs we send messages about ourselves to others. Desma 10 provides a broad overview of the phenomena that make up design culture. It demonstrates that design does not only mean the "high design" of famous star designers and design companies. The most efficient design is often invisible - devices like door knobs and traffic lights help us without drawing attention to themselves as design(ed) objects. To understand design culture we must pay attention to invisible things as well. We also have to explain the motives that guide their planning, their marketing, their reception and their uses. The lectures will discuss the main movements and trends of design as a cultural and social phenomenon. Particular emphasis will be given to the interconnections between design and technology. The relationship between design and art will also be explored in various contexts from the Victorian era and early 20th century modernism to the 1960s pop culture and Postmodernism. A rich array of demonstration material ranging from classical industrial design to recent postmodern design trends will be presented. CLASS SCHEDULE Meeting 1 (Sep. 26) What is Design? What Isn’t Design? Keywords: / Definitions of design and culture / Design, nature, culture / Design and cultural difference / Design and sustainable development / Visible and invisible design Readings: No Meeting 2 (Oct.3) Design Culture – The BasicsKeywords: High and Low Design / Design and Art / Etymology of the word “design” /The Beginnings of Design Culture Readings: 1) John Heskett: “What is Design?”, from Heskett: Toothpicks and Logos. Design in Everyday Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp.1-11; AND 2) Victor Papanek: “What is Design? A Definition of the Function Complex”, from Papanek: Design for the Real World, Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2000 [1985], pp. 3-27. Meeting 3 (Oct.10) Design, Society and Technology Keywords: Function and ornament / mass production and assembly lines / designer and engineer / Mechanisation and automation / Design and power / Streamlining Readings: Erkki Huhtamo: "From Cybernation to Interaction: A Contribution to an Archaeology of Interactivity", The Digital Dialectic. New Essays on New Media, ed. Peter Lunenfeld, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1999, pp. 96-110, 250-256. Meeting 4 (Oct.17) SPECIAL SESSION: The Great UCLA Design Game 2.0 Readings: Erkki Huhtamo: Semiotics Handout (available on the class website) Meeting 5 (Oct.24) Design for Public Spaces Keywords: The Dream of Total Design / Art Nouveau / Konstructivism: design as political spectacle / Skyscrapers / World’s Fairs Readings: Erkki Huhtamo: "Gigantological Investigations", excerpts. Will be published in Interface Aesthetics (Nai Publishers, 2009) @ Erkki Huhtamo 2008. Meeting 6 (Oct.31) Design, Consumers and Corporations Keywords: Designing and marketing consumer goods / “built-in obsolescence” / corporate design and branding. Readings: Naomi Klein: "New Branded World," from NO LOGO, London, New York and Toronto: Harper Perennial, 2001, pp.2-26. (MIDTERM PROJECTS TO BE HANDED IN OCT 31) Meeting 7 (Nov.7) Alternative Design Keywords: Design and pop culture / Underground and psychedelia / Punk, Situationism / Design as weapon / Sustainable design Readings: 1) Jonathan M. Woodham: “Pop to Post-Modernism: Changing Values”, from Woodham: Twentieth-Century Design, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 182-203 (Oxford History of Art) 2) Naomi Klein: "Culture Jamming: Ads under Attack," from NO LOGO, London, New York and Toronto: Harper Perennial, 2001, pp.278-309. (MIDTERM PROJECTS WILL BE RETURNED NOV 9)Meeting 8 (Nov.14) Design in the Postmodern Era I Keywords: Keywords: / Design and art – blurred boundaries / Designer as “Superstar”/ Emotional Design / Design within media culture Readings: 1) Philip Nobel: "Art/Architecture; Can Design In American Avoid the Style Trap?" The New York Times, November 26, 2000. 2) Paola Antonelli: "Design and the Elastic Mind," from Design and the Elastic Mind, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2008, pp.14-27. Meeting 9 (Nov.21) SPECIAL SESSION: A Peek at the Design Process. Reading: No ------- Nov. 28 Thanksgiving Holiday, No Meeting! ---------------- Meeting 10 (Dec.5) Design in the Postmodern Era II Proliferation of (de)sign / Interface design / Wearables, mobile interfaces / Design, surface, skin. Readings: Ellen Lupton: "Skin, New Design Organics", from Skin. Surface Substance + Design, New York: Princeton Architectural Press and Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Smithsonian Institution, 2002, pp.28-41. (FINAL PROJECTS TO BE HANDED IN DEC.5 !) FINALS WEEK: No Meeting! GRADING AND ASSIGNMENTS There will be a midterm assignment and a final assignment. The midterm is a homework to be realized individually. The final assignment will be a creative groupwork (4-5 people in a group). The exact topics will be announced later. There will also be three multiple choice quizzes based on the previous week’s lecture and / or the assigned readings. Missing one (1) of the quizzes will not affect the grade. There will also be a Special Session, “The Great UCLA Design Game”. The grading consists of the midterm assignment (30 %), the final assignment (50 %), the quizzes (10%) and the Great UCLA Design Game (10%). More than two absences (without the instructor's permission) will lower the final grade by one step per absence (-). Extraordinary participation in the class meetings may increase the final grade by one step