Design – a book about how design can be more than what meets the eye. An armchair and a payment app don't just tell us how to use them properly. They also contain attitudes about what is important, believes the book's author Peter Gall Krogh, architect at Aarhus University. Regardless of whether they are bent in steel in large-scale industry, or a carpenter has sharpened the edges, things are also always matters, Krogh explains: Before the lamp takes shape, the designer has given it shape and tested and rejected or refined ideas.
Every design contains messages about what is important in life. Some designs will promote sustainable development by reusing materials, others focus on maintaining old craft traditions with classic natural materials, and still others will make our lives more efficient and productive with industrial mass production.
Design is also about a certain way of approaching the world. Both the product designer and the IT developer can only make workable solutions if they understand the people who will use them and the situations in which they will be used. But this also applies to the scout leader who plans activities for children and the nurse who prepares rehabilitation courses for patients.
Peter Gall Krogh: "Usually we see design as a profession that helps companies increase sales of certain goods, create solutions to problems or make products particularly useful. But design in the form of chairs at school and apps on the phone also shape how we live together, who we are and what we imagine new technologies should be able to do for us in everyday life.”
The book is from Århus University Publishing's series, "Think breaks - knowledge for everyday life".
Dimensions: 18 x 11 x 0.6 cm
Pages: 60
Language Danish
Author: Peter Gall Krogh
Publisher: Aarhus University Press
See all Tänkepauser books from Århus University Publishing here .