Design Culture Matters

We live in an uncertain, changing, hard-to-focus era in which traditional design approaches and methods can no longer respond to today’s challenges that surface in varying degrees and intensity. Moreover, we are developing a different perception of ‘materiality’ and the mediums employed. Hence in this ‘liquid’ and blurry landscape, the question emerges: What is the importance of understanding the value of design culture, more precisely, the “matters” through which this culture is manifested and expressed today? Moreover, how design culture aligns with the changed reality by responding “creatively” to today’s emergencies?
The volume investigates a wide sphere of issues referring to an extended concept of “matter” – the word matter intended not only as materials as such but also of content and relationships – through design actions, approaches, processes, tools and methodologies employed in different areas and with different objectives, yet united by the desire to intercept the current shift, sometimes reinventing and sometimes evolving programmatically over time to embrace the changed framework.
The matter is thus interpreted in its range of potential declinations, bouncing from concept to object, material to immaterial, process to solution, and traditionally defined medium to a dynamic virtual tool.
This collection of essays is dedicated to all those who wish to explore the value and “matter” of design culture between past inheritance, present time and foreseeable future mutations through the deepening and inspiration of new and alternative tools, approaches and design methods.