Discourses on the Understanding of Culture and (Product) Design Interaction

The aim of this study was initially to investigate the performance of culture and design as well as to explain the interaction of them and to establish the cultural qualities of design products. The author’s background in studying and designing in the specified field of this research (product design) was also one of the implications for culturally focusing it. Meanwhile, one of the main consequences of such study is also to inform about the recent literature published in culture-design area. On the basis of the aims of the study, the following essential research questions could be developed: -What is culture and how it can be defined within design context?, -How does culture-design interaction work? There was a need to review the culture-design domain to see how it related to the specific product design context. Recent attempts in design research, education and practice support this idea. Therefore, to thoroughly comprehend the research area and fully achieve the aims of the study, a base study on the definition, extent and application of culture and design was undertaken. Therefore, within the context of this study, design was considered as a medium for exchange of meaning and communication on a socio-cultural basis in products, services and processes. This suggests that design could play an intermediary role across a range of disciplines. Culture was perceived in a way that dealt with different social layers of societies. Culture runs and guides members of societies and brings about effective communication and interaction amongst them. The definitions would help in analysing the culture-design interaction in more detail. It seems the mentioned definitions for culture and design could provide the link needed for interaction. Symbolic values of products, which are highly associated with social and cultural issues, were seen as the foundation for the said interaction. The interaction between culture and design could be developed within the mind (e.g. the idea of subjectivity and latency) or outside the mind (e.g. the objective form of culture). However, as far as the literature review was concerned, whatever the existence of culture was, it could be reflected through cultural products, souvenirs or creative industries. Based on one of the models (Four-Paradigms model) a tendency to move from the subjective-latent side of culture towards the objective-explicit side of it was revealed within the study. A product is an object that on its own does not have meaning, so cannot fulfil expectations, but it can pull together our experiences and analogies to give meaning and catalyse change. One of the main roles of the designer is therefore to relate them together and address the issues that generate a collective representation. From this point of view, a cultural artefact can be considered as a product that has become a meaningful object in its own right. Furthermore, cultural products, could find a new symbolic meaning within a course of time in certain societies. This paper was distilled from a PhD thesis in design submitted to the University of Brighton in 2008 by the author.