Design As
Who does design belong to, and who is it for? How does it serve us—all of us—and how can we learn to better understand its future, and our own?
On Design As— podcast from Design Observer—we’ll dig into all of this and more, in conversation with design leaders, scholars, practitioners, and a range of industry experts whose seasoned perspectives will help illuminate the questions as well as the answers. In our first season, we considered the topics of Culture, Complexity, and Citizenship in terms of their impact on the design practice and also in terms of how they themselves are being shaped by design today. In season two, recorded at the Design Research Conference 2024 in Boston, we gathered new round tables to discuss Design As Governance, Care, Visualization, Discipline, Humanity, and Pluriverse. Plus, our bonus episodes are exclusive recordings of conference panels!
Design As
Design As S2: Trailer
Design As is back! Starting January 7th Design As will release episodes weekly. Joining host Lee Moreau to speculate on the future of design through a range of different perspectives. This season you’ll hear discussions on six new key words — Governance, Care, Visualization, Discipline, Humanity, & Pluriverse — plus two exclusive bonus episodes directly recorded at the Design Research Society conference this past summer!
Follow Design Observer on Instagram to keep up and see even more Design As content.
A full transcript of the audio, plus an essay from Lee about this season, can be found here.
Lee Moreau: [00:00:01] Design As is back. Starting January 7th we'll be back in your feed, weekly, speculating on the future of design and bringing you a range of different perspectives. This season, we're bringing you six new episodes with six new keywords on: [00:00:16][14.4]
Lee Moreau / Shin-pei Tsay: [00:00:16] Governance, [00:00:16][0.0]
Lee Moreau / Jadalia Britto: [00:00:17] Care, [00:00:17][0.0]
Lee Moreau / Dietmar Offenhuber: [00:00:18] Visualization, [00:00:18][0.0]
Lee Moreau / Mariana Amatullo: [00:00:20] Discipline, [00:00:20][0.0]
Lee Morea / Laura Forlano: [00:00:20] Humanity, [00:00:20][0.0]
Lee Moreau: [00:00:21] and the emerging world of [00:00:22][0.9]
Lee Moreau / Renata Marques Leitao: [00:00:24] Pluriversal design — [00:00:24][0.3]
Lee Moreau: [00:00:24] Plus two bonus episodes: Welcome to our panel, Design Research Leadership in Business. And please welcome Giorgia Lupi. And a super special season finale guest. [00:00:34][10.6]
Don Norman: [00:00:37] And I said: I design designers. [00:00:37][0.5]
Lee Moreau: [00:00:38] I spent six days at the Design Research Society's biannual conference hosted in Boston from June 23rd to 28th at Northeastern University and MIT is Morningside Academy of Design and Harvard University. Though the event dates back to 1962, this year was the first time it's ever been held in the United States. And it was tremendously exciting to be there. I left with the idea that if 2024 marked the closing of a chapter, design has what it takes to start a new and more powerful one. And luckily, I brought my podcasting equipment with me. [00:01:11][33.5]
[ Design Research Society]: [00:01:12] Thank you so much for being here and enjoy your conference. [00:01:13][1.7]
Lee Moreau: [00:01:16] I spoke with extraordinary thinkers, creators and experts about the state of design, their practices, and most importantly, their thoughts on the future. [00:01:25][8.2]
Sheng-Hung Lee: [00:01:25] I really feel like the future of design inside a human cannot be replaced, right? You have a lot of ideas, but can you have a great taste? [00:01:33][8.0]
Lee Moreau: [00:01:34] We talked about the relationship between products in play, [00:01:36][2.2]
Paolo Ciuccarelli: [00:01:38] For controversial and societal problems, and when you have data, you want to make sure that multiple stakeholders can be part of the problem and the solution. [00:01:47][8.5]
Lee Moreau: [00:01:47] And how, contrary to popular fears, design's scope has only grown. [00:01:51][3.4]
Elizabeth Christoforetti: [00:01:52] As I've been going back and looking through history about how design disciplines have changed over time, they're always changing in relationship to moments of extreme complexity. [00:02:02][10.4]
Lee Moreau: [00:02:03] And while transitions are hard, longevity in the field is still possible. [00:02:07][3.5]
Rachel Dietkus: [00:02:07] I just come from this philosophy that if if we are not taking care of ourselves, if we are not taking care of one another, then we fundamentally cannot do the work. [00:02:16][8.8]
Lee Moreau: [00:02:17] And as the world shifts its focus to the needs of increasingly vulnerable stakeholders, design has a unique opportunity to lead, co-create and ethically shape systems that will work for everyone. [00:02:28][11.1]
Lesley-Ann Noel: [00:02:28] Anybody who feels a little bit othered has—I find that they have found this conversation of a world of many worlds resonates with them because it kind of gives them space to say: Okay, I can exist as I am. [00:02:43][14.6]
Lee Moreau: [00:02:44] Make sure you're subscribed to Design As wherever you listen to podcasts and that you're following us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube or wherever else you scroll at Design Observer to never miss an episode or our bonus content. [00:02:44][0.0]
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