Perspectives on Design II

This chapter considers the foundations and relevance of the Double Diamond model fifteen years after it was first published. It draws from a lecture presented by Jonathan Ball at EIMAD in 2020. The first part of the text is devoted to the history of understanding and describing how designers work. The emphasis is on the increasing complexity of design problems, requiring designers to work with people who are unfamiliar with the design process. It goes on to describe the key phases of the Double Diamond model and comments on how they relate to universal characteristics of designers’ ways of working and their thinking styles. The final section looks at different ways of working with the model, adapting it to current design challenges.

To date, there has been little reflection on Design Education in Portugal. Especially after the revolution of 25 April 1974 and later Portugal’s entry into the European Union, there was a proliferation of higher education courses in Design, in university and polytechnic education, public and private. We are aware that bridging the fields of design and education allows the construction of a social perspective, centered on the formulation of design principles and their contribution to educational practices, with a focus of design on finding solutions to problems that mediate learning, highlighting the social role of design on issues related to needs, from a sociologically localized perspective and with the development of knowledge associated with students’ formation process. This leads us to a reflection on the potentialities that naturally emanate from the “spirit of the place” where a certain training in design develops, which is different from the “culture of the place”, in a clear articulation with the local cultural identity. Cultural identity, besides the sense of self, provides a global significance of local knowledge and community. If we address globalization in its deeper sense, in terms of science, technology, social or even economic development, we verify that it promotes cultural identity. This work focuses on the discovery of interconnections between the teaching of Design and the educational institutions in which this education takes place, trying to value the identity of the place, its culture, in a holistic view that highlights its differences and qualities that contribute to make each institution unique and owning a specific expertise. The research was supported by a methodology of literature review crossing and interpreting fundamental authors and theories, articulated with the author’s experience and direct observation. We arrived to the conclusion that each higher education school of Design in Portugal must implement a serious reflection on its role in the specific area of study and in the region, leading to value the ‘spirit of the place’ which is different from the ‘culture of place’. To define the spirit of the place contribute and interact countless variables such as the physical place (geographic and architectural), the provided environment (interior space, rooms, laboratories, equipment), the curricular grids seen as a whole of training, the teachers who teach in the institution at a given time, the developed group synergies, the articulation with the environment, with the local society and their needs and desires, the contribution to the local and regional development of the institution as a whole, among others.

This study presents the context and circumstances in which the course of Design (Graphic Art) was created at the Porto School of Fine Arts in a post revolution period. This course, along with the Design courses created at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts, was the first Design course in Portuguese higher education. The study outlines the first pedagogical experiences in the field of Graphic Arts carried out in the 1960s and 1970s within the Painting course; how the course of Design was initially structured; and how its first years proved to be fundamental to its vocation. The research methodology includes document analysis and ethnography, namely life-story interviews conducted with artists and designers who played a key contextual role, both as teachers and as students. The findings show a close relationship between the Design (Graphic Art) course and both Painting and Sculpture courses, resulting from a series of factors: the first pedagogical experiences in the area of graphic arts having arisen in the context of the Painting course; the fact that when Design was created, the curriculum included several subjects in common to both to Painting and Sculpture; and the evidence that during the first decade of the Design course, the subjects were taught by professors without specialized training in the area, a majority of them having graduated in Painting or Sculpture. This close disciplinary relationship contributed to determining the specificity and vocation of the Design course, essentially oriented towards the image, visual communication, and graphic design concerns.

This paper analyses the youth-led and youth-centred practices of two organisations located in Dublin and Porto. The authors consider the application of educational programmes through co-creation and co-design may be relevant for informing and supporting everyday research and innovation practice and policymaking aimed at youth. The key findings of the paper stress that there is a need for: (i) building capacities in design for the intergenerational collaboration; (ii) a continuous promotion of open innovation of the study’s approach to research and innovation practice and policymaking; (iii) digitalisation of education and creating new opportunities for youth-led codesign and co-creation in the school context.

The essay presents the paradigms of design and territory framed by identity. It discusses the potential for the development of local production. One that involves a cultural and material context and precise geography. It favors know-how of an indigenous nature that we enhance through design. That is where the object-place emerges. This product moves global without losing its natural root and its local brand. The text introduces, in the first place, the paradigms of design and identity. It presents, in a second moment, the idea of local action. In the third part, we established some territorial characteristics. Those that can manifest them self in many material solutions, valued through place knowledge. Finally, we highlighted the possible transformations in design teaching. We present The Designesart project of the Escola Superior de Artes Aplicadas de Castelo Branco. We emphasize the importance of this model as a new practice for design. We defend its reflection when it finds its local dimension.

The evolution of technology towards digital and abstract possibilities combined with the evolution of culture and the intricacies of technology empower the designer’s role in the design process. The virtualization of the world is a reality throughout society and a decisive factor in various sectors of design. This article introduces a tool created to analyse the graphic thinking involved in a project, and the participation of new technologies in the designer’s creative process and graphic representation of his ideas. A core (the designer) that is connected to three small networks: graphic thinking, creative thinking, and project thinking, forms the archetype of graphic thinking. Outstanding designers and theoreticians in the field of project methodology, creativity and graphic representation, have been studied for the making of this tool. This visual graphic tool can identify the changes in the creative process and its materialization, as well as verify to what extend new technologies have paved the way not only for a change in the thinking process, but also in design.

Education is more than training skills and techniques. It is an intellectual preparation for life-long learning that cultivates the abilities of the mind to encounter new situations and respond with ingenuity, imagination, and creativity.

Today’s Design Education must take into account the complex nature of contemporary design, the wide range of fields in which it can operate and the new paradigm of our times.

Drawing can be an essential operational support both for teaching and professional practice. Freehand drawing is a must, not only for practicing designers but, also, for the Design students education.

Facing hand drawing as a daily mental activity for the performance of design practice could be a way for developing a drawing teaching strategy inserted in a Design Education that aims reflection and investigation in an active pedagogy process, committed to a critical posture and enhancing in each student their own creative individuality. The daily drawing practice strengthens neural networks and engages cognitive faculties at many levels. Students should sketch from the very beginning of their education and be required to use sketches to document and develop their visual ideas.

Under a qualitative research, based on literature review methodology, we intend to investigate the use of freehand drawing/sketching importance on Design Education. Through the study of several statements from various authors we verify the permanence of sketching important role. This research aims to stimulate reflection and bring new perspectives on the nowadays use of freehand drawing/sketching both in the design creative process and in Design Education.

The Service Design is a growing professional and academic field. It is characterized by a holistic and interdisciplinary approach with focus on the processes of co-creation and co-production. It also has as one of the most emblematic tools the Service Blueprint. Nonetheless, the field still presents a gap in the proposition of tools and inclusive processes for disabled people, especially blind and deaf ones. In this paper, we propose the reflection of disabled people inclusion in the development of services, as well as we approach the Service Blueprint as an important tool, suggesting the addition of inclusive and accessible perspectives among its classic components.

The long evolution process that education has been through along centuries have always been affected by how society itself has evolved, which is, in turn, influenced by events like the Industrial Revolution, the appearance of Internet or a pandemic such as the COVID-19; the most significant events in the last decades were a succession of technological breakthroughs that transformed our world and our lives, the way we live, work, teach, and learn. In this study, building on existing research and review of literature to reflect on how those significant events transformed societies and economies causing subsequent adaptation in education, we have then questioned which and how lasting were the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Literature shows that technology advances have always triggered the need to acquire new skill sets and the pandemic has only accelerated a pathway of change that technology has started, prompting solidarity, collaboration, and new ways of working and learning. Survey results indicate the effects of the pandemic in education are long-lasting and that design education will most likely follow a blended learning model in the future.

The spring of 2020 saw the spread of the virus COVID_19. The pandemic context experienced since demanded human physical distancing which results in the closure of universities and schools, ground flights, and closing spaces to stop all forms of gatherings. The forced lockdown to ensure the safety of people, and the government policies to close operations pressed and encouraged employers and employees to adopt telework notwithstanding the short time to prepare everyone for a new model of work. Before the pandemic, telework faced a slow acceptance and adoption in European countries. The pandemic was and still is a driving force for the adoption of telework, in this case considering the remote workplace employees’ domestic environs. A review of literature exposes plenty of information regarding telework benefits and drawbacks, but scarce information is available about the relationship between telework and Academia. This article aims to understand the academia’s experience of working from home, especially the features of home workplace and its impact on the health and wellbeing of the individuals. At the end, the main question is if academics want to stay with any form of telework. The responses obtained revealed that academics want to remain in telework several days a week and have working space conditions to do so. Literature review and online questionnaire performed the theoretical framework and contextual data to support the conclusions achieved. The answers ascertained the experience as a positive one, indicating that home workplaces have comfortable, technical and private conditions and there is a generic expectation to proceed with telework for several days a week.

Resilience and sustainability are topics that are intrinsically interconnected. This paper selected among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), those who seek resilience. The term appears in the 1st (No poverty), 11th (Sustainable cities and communities), 13th (Climate action) and 14th (Life below water) goals. Thus, the paper describes examples of projects that promoted resilience and sustainability focusing on flood situations with emphasis on the selected goals. From this analysis, required conditions are extracted that can deliver significant benefits if they are multiplied by disaster risk reduction practitioners. Aims to build project requirements from design to sustainability with those who carry out projects that address the problems of rain-related disasters.

This paper aims to undertake a closer examination of the design ecosystem model, considering it has recently emerged to justify and support the implementation of design policies within the systems failure theory. It does so by identifying and analyzing diverse perspectives and some of the gaps in the literature, and to propose adaptations in the model by looking at design capabilities as its substance, and as well to identify avenues for further research.

Contemporary society it is marked by the strong transformations that has been felt, recently, in all social, educational, cultural and political levels. It seems that we are facing a society that drastically empties itself of its values and ways of acting, trying to reconfigure itself at every step, a redoubled effort required of all of us, in order to respond to the demands and challenges that we face every day. This empty tide, full of uncertainties where we are called to make deeper reflections on the way we have been proceeding along our academic and professional path, can also become a turning point in the history of mankind. We now have, more than ever, the possibility of renewing ourselves and being able to open new pathways by adopting more conscious and constructive attitudes, inside and outside the academic environment. We have the possibility to train young people who are more aware and more attentive to society and their fellows. The text presented, intends to bring a reflection on how to make a difference, in communication design, promoting and sensitizing students, to issues related to social inclusion and to the realization of projects in which they contemplate, accessibility and inclusion. Transformative Education; Raising Awareness for the Inclusion Thematic; Communication for all; Accessible and Inclusive Communication are some of the topics that we will cover in this section.

Design for social innovation aims at solving community problems by recombining available resources, creating new social relationships, and strengthening stakeholder networks. Social innovation presents itself as one of the most promising proposals for responding to systemic problems that manifest themselves both at a global and local level, and the use of design methodologies, tools, and skills enables social innovation to become more resilient and sustainable. Communication design is a particularly relevant area in this context, as it meets the needs for visibility, visual materialization, creation of future scenarios, dissemination, and replication. Through an in-depth case study of three social innovation initiatives, we collected evidence regarding different roles that design is called upon, although they are not exclusive to communication design. Some of the main roles relate to triggering the initiatives themselves as well as the social debate that sustains them, facilitating processes of ideation and co-creation, mediating actors and prototyping products, services or events.

This article explores the important relationship between design, information and education for a more sustainable social conscience, through a brief bibliographic exploration and critique of the contemporary world’s strategic-political scenario. It also discusses the relevance of interdisciplinarity associated to design and other disciplines in the construction of a communication committed to inform, alleviating possible interferences in the understanding of the message. As the problems of the world, in relation to sustainable issues, become more and more complex, design is an instrument that incorporates collaborative and participative methodologies in search of solutions in the most varied social areas. Thus, in this context and sense, the article brings two ‘cases’ exemplifying the good use of communication design (purpose and sustainable purpose) as a resource to guide a proposal of an informational message more inviting and thought to the intended audience. The text provokes the reader with some questions and ends with a reflection on our contemporary scenario, in an attempt to build a coherent contribution in the body of knowledge in this area.

Portugal is receiving international recognition for its competence centres in various activity sectors, mostly located in the North of the country (wines, textiles, footwear, wooden furniture, technology). This region still enjoys a creative frenzy that is an innovation enhancer. Despite that, the perceived strength of Brand Origin for Portuguese Made products is lower than Swiss Made or German Made products. Optimistically, we can see this as space and opportunity for growth of the Brand Portugal, but which presents itself as a demanding challenge for the territories through their local agents. Considering this ecosystem, we affirm the indispensable contribution of Design in the economic valorization of the industrial product and the sustainable growth of cities, regions, and nations. Thus, we bring to this reflection a review that articulates the theoretical statements of Design as Cultural Mediator and Brand Design, looking for the stabilization of concepts associated with them, and we left as a contribution, the possibility of The Brand as Mediation through Design.

This article proposes a reflection on the visual thinking tools used in graphic design teaching as an active methodology that help the synthesis process of the expressive code and support graphic expression and semantics in design practice. It´s intended to analyze more specifically the use of mood boards as an imagery tool in the creation of a brand mark and its relationship with expressive codes. In order to build a relevant and meaningful brand mark, it is important to be aware of the semantic elements used. Tools like mood boards help students with the aesthetic-symbolic references of the form and make the semantic concepts more perceptible. At the end we analyze mood boards and their relationship with semantics in the creation of brand marks.

In this paper, we address the categorisation of sounds in the soundscapes of videogames. Analysis and classification of sounds in their relationship with humans are essential to help us assess how we interact with acoustic components. We also provide an outline of sound concerning player perception, game design, interaction, realism, and communication. To compile information, we combined an autoethnography methodology with the soundwalking practice applied to videogames. The findings indicate that rules and actions can make the soundscape of videogames anthropophonic. However, such happens with all audiovisual media, so this categorisation is only hypothetical. The categories of Krause’s taxonomy may be insufficient to analyse soundscapes that are too varied. As such, the categorisation of sounds as technophonic is also examined. We also show how repetition, patterns, and rhythm are used in games to make sounds mechanical and improve game design. This understanding will allow designers to deliver distinct experiences to players.

The development of Design as a discipline in Portugal was slow. Therefore, only in the ‘80s, visual culture was implemented through Communication Design. Its rises were just at the beginning of the twentieth century, which constrain the identification of Communication Design as a specific field of Design, isolated from other areas of knowledge such as Advertising. Communication Design is strategic to conveying messages in a world that converges on visual culture. Its role in society is to facilitate informational and cognitive processes that enhance the human being’s physical, neurological, and psychological behavior and the connection established with objects, others, and the world. The messages’ interpretations are anchored on symbolic representations that compose collective memories, i.e., shared social construction derived from social representations validated by media and social systems. This chapter aims to explore how social representations influence perceptions of Design. We conducted an exploratory study based on the Free Word Association Test with Design students was implemented to put the analysis forward. The main conclusions refer to a central design association for Advertising, and peripheral associations for Marketing, forms of expression, and Design and media products.

In 1932, Gabriele Chanel (1883–1971) presented an unprecedented jewellery collection at the Bijoux de Diamants exhibition (London), inspired by stars, planets, and comets, working in partnership with Paul Iribe (1883–1935) and producing transformable pieces in precious materials. This idea of changeability was explored by other jewelers or companies such as Van Cleef, but after the middle of the 20th century, we assist to changes greatly stimulated by artistic fields and by the desire to transform the society that will be reflected not only in language but also in materials and techniques. This theme is still pertinent to us. With one single object, we can answer to different occasions and aspirations. Jewellery can be an extension of ourselves, communicating our personality, our moods and breaking at the same time with the tendency to a standardization very present in the fashion field. The present collection entitled “Playful spaces” is part of a post-doctorate in Design called “Possible but improbable spaces” developed within the CIAUD (Lisbon School of Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa). Architecture and nature are our concepts, side by side with the manipulation of volumes and masses and its possible games of transformation. The present objects resulted from the construction of a system of fitting so-called mobile elements that were replicated in all components of the same collection to make their appropriation more intuitive and playful for the user. The same solution was applied to more mimetic scales.

The design process has various elements that require understanding the implications for creativity and product development to create different and innovative products. While it is critical to design for a customer or for a purpose the creativity is often stagnated by a lack of understanding of the different components that can make up a creative approach to an area that seems traditional and often outdated. By directing students to observe the embroidery as a starting point to a creative process it is possible to deconstruct the embroidery into its different parts and interpret it as whole creation and entity as well as a sum of parts that have their creative elements that can be structured or restructured to create new, innovative and invocative design pieces.

This article discusses a design methodology’s model to interpret Portuguese historic interior design spaces from the project’s definition to its recreation in Virtual Reality. This methodology is based upon 5 phases: Project Definition; Data Collection; Data Processing and Analysis; 3D Space and Virtual Space. As this investigation intends to interpret interior design and architecture projects, hermeneutics appears as the elected framework for the design methodology presented in this study. The hermeneutical design interpretation enhances to understand the project’s collected data and its context till the application in the three-dimensional modelling of the space and consequently how its recreation occurs in the virtual space. This methodology is intended to be replicated in other historical interior spaces, even those that are no longer physically available. In this sense, the study is aligned with the Digital Era challenges and the opportunities within contemporary paradigms. This research interacts with Digital contents as a channel to learn and to preserve knowledge and cultural heritage.

The immersion in virtual reality is separated into multiple concepts as proposed by different researchers, essentially, we create a comparison between sensorial immersion, challenge-based immersion, mental or imaginary immersion and emotional immersion. We analyze Offland, an exploratory project which consisted in the creation of a fictional world and virtual reality experience, to explore this medium’s immersion and storytelling. The lessons taken from brief user testing helped understanding which narrative and interactive elements may help toward each type of immersion. From this study we concluded that sensorial immersion is natural to virtual reality and advancements in technology will certainly help it become stronger. As in videogames, it is through challenge-based immersion that the user enters a flow-state, achieving satisfaction through a balance of challenge and skills. Mental or imaginary immersion happens when the user connects with the fictional world which inspired the narrative. We also concluded that the use of details to indicate a larger fictional universe can engage the user in this kind of immersion. A deeper state of immersion allows for the narrative to reach protected values related to the identity, affection, morality, decision-making and social cognition. We use this deconstructed view of immersion to help understand it, but this approach does not cover the complexity of total immersion. Finally, we believe that future advancements in virtual reality open a door for much valuable research and testing of the causes and effects of each type of immersion.

This paper presents a set of Design principles for the development of dashboards for the area of business management. The objective of this study is to guide and help the designer in his dashboard design process in order to obtain efficient results. The adopted methodologies were focused on literature review of design principles in dashboard creation, namely in the areas of interface design; data visualization; usability; UX and UI design; interaction design; and visual identity. The study demonstrates the importance of design, namely in establishing a convergent relationship between the graphic and functional components, in order to guarantee adequate and efficient interface solutions for the user.

This article presents the results of an ongoing scientific initiation research, as well as the contributions attained from a Research Internships Abroad Program (BEPE/FAPESP) which sought to expand the theoretical framework on design processes regarding sensory products in the European Market. The study focuses on toys for children with blindness or low vision, including its design process, all the way though its physical prototyping. Here follows the adopted structure of analysis: (a) Theoretical review on the design of sensory products and the contribution of the Montessori method; (b) Application of synchronous analysis amid similar children’s toys from the European market, specifically those commercialized in Portugal; (c) Project development with generation and selection of alternatives; (d) Experimental execution of the physical prototype at the Prototype Laboratory. Thus, this research aims to contribute to the development of sensory products through the Montessori method, as well as stimulating further research in the areas of Product Design and Inclusive Design.

The goal is to help the proliferation of pollinating insects, that throughout the years, according to scientists, have suffered—thanks to various causes—a drastic reduction of the populations, which has been reported in many scientific studies, and becomes concerning given that these animals are important for the reproduction of vegetable crops and consequently for humanity. Within the concepts of animal design, a nesting place and a waterer for pollinating insects were developed: the “aBEElhário” and the “BEEbedor”. This study, still in the initial phase, had promising results given that the bee waterer is the most highlighted object regarding the utility demonstrated during this time sample. The nesting place was occupied by pollinating insect species but needs to be monitored for longer.