14th International Design Conference
May, 16-19 2016
Cavtat, Dubrovnik, Croatia
A WORD BEFORE
The first DESIGN Symposium, organised 35 years ago, was strictly oriented to mechanical engineering design and CAD. It is hard to neglect the past and the beginnings, and DESIGN conference events marked my colleagues, teammates, programme chairs, the participants and myself. The shift of topics and research interests was unthinkable at that time. We deal with new ideas, with knowledge creation and dissemination, development of product service systems, functional reasoning and design thinking, just to mention the some of the headlines.
Over the past thirty-five years, researchers of and in design have developed a discipline as broad as we witness it even on this small event. These 35 years are the years of constant innovation in every aspect of product development. Being so, our understanding of design and knowledge about became deeper, methods of research grounded and results visible and notable.
Although more than seven decades of research efforts resulted in a reach legacy of approaches and theories, we are not much closer to the understanding of the nature of design itself. As in every discipline, research is like exploring the universe, as far as we go the new frontiers became visible and new goals are set. What we are trying to understand is design. Indeed, we want to understand how to develop new methods, to develop the new products, which will be better than the existing one. Although this view seems to be wide and unconstrained, it is a narrow view. What we deal with is the most complex human activity of all, the creation of new. Design is efficient and reliable; the engineers like to believe so. Effective in all the aspects as well as sustainable, much before "sustainability" became a buzzword. Rationality was and is, in the essence of design. Design defined and forged our past in every aspect, our present too, with all the consequences for the future that are demarcated at every design moment, with or without the intention of designer.
Design is also evolutionary. We might believe in the creator and neglect the Theory of evolution but we cannot deny our progress, or, in other words, our history is a history of small evolutionary steps. In all the aspects, not only, but also, in technology as well as in design, the progress is made in small steps, most often, based on existing solutions adapting, combining, and adopting. The new cognitions based on the comprehension of previous lead to novelties. The appropriate survive, the inappropriate became forgotten, but nothing is deleted and the new products, theories, methods and tools inherit all the experience. Regardless if this is comprehended pre or post development the consequence is the same. We call it complexity and it is rising at every moment. How should we deal with it? The answer is multidisciplinarity and it is visible also at this DESIGN conference. Multidisciplinary is the flag of all contemporary efforts regardless if these are research driven like in the engineering domain, or design driven in what we often comprehend as artistic design domains. From approaches motivated by problems that must be solved, we moved to the methodology for innovations integrating problem solving and design. We might not be able to generate innovation on demand but we surely know how to build environment to foster innovation, increase its probability to happen although the uncertainty we have to deal with was never so high. We often hear design research is fragmented. And we, with different argumentation, agree about, design domains still fragment design research. Should we continue in the same way? Most likely we will continue doing so, but continuing on this path the balance between generalisation and specialisation will be demanding to reach.
At the level of manufacturing technology we use to build products, logistics needed to organise the worldwide production and usage, at the degree of quality consumers are expecting today, the complexity of product development is on the level that has never been seen in the past. Rigour academic research should provide designers with the next generation of method and tools that will be appropriate to demands. To make it clear, I am not advocating for a single, universal design theory or method that solves all kinds of problems. What I am arguing for is a joint multidisciplinary focus of science, design, engineering, and art. Such attempt is even more demanding and more complex than we can comprehend. The knowledge required is not thought on any single study. The goals are high but if you turn back what we consider common today was unreachable in the even recent past.
Last 18 years the core team of DESIGN conference worked together building from a small, anonymous event to a current one. DESIGN conference is not a big event nor we want it to be big, indeed we like it just as it is, just as big as not to be the small one. The programme chairs and organising team initiated changes in DESIGN conference that had impact much broader than an intended. We strived to quality and merits. We contributed to the new reviewing practice and initiated support for PhD students that become a feature of The Design Society events.
With the help of the programme chairs the reviewers and all The Design Society members, DESIGN conferences became a milestone event in design research community. At this moment, I would like to thank you to all the researchers and programme chairs that have built the previous DESIGN conference events. To come to this point, where we gathered on the first day of DESIGN 2016 conference, joint effort and knowledge of more than 1000 individuals: authors, co-authors and reviewers shared and synchronised. In behalf of programme chairs and organising team, thank you all, for making it possible.
The motto of DESIGN conference was set by one of the former programme chairs: Mogens Andreassen. "Excellence in Design" it is a demanding motto for all, the organising team for the reviewers, and for you, the presenters. We expect from you to give your best, and no less than that. Hope you will broaden your knowledge, find new research partners, and will share your experience for the benefit of the community.
Welcome to the 14th International DESIGN conference! Thank you for being with us and making us better.
Dorian Marjanović
Professor, PhD. M. E.
