Javier Gimeno-Martinez gives a talk on the development of the scholarly study of design as culture.
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In 2010, Premsela and VU University Amsterdam are looking toward a new frontier: the growing scholarly study of design culture. Three academics shared their thoughts on this burgeoning discipline at our joint New Year’s symposium on 14 January.
José Teunissen, a fashion lecturer at ArtEZ Institute of the Arts, began with a plea for the scholarly study of fashion as part of design culture. Too often, academics and the general public see fashion as superficial, she said – a topic for the newspaper’s entertainment section. Fashion has too seldom been treated as a sociocultural phenomenon, she said, but she hoped this was changing. To view her talk, click
here.
Leiden University typography professor Gerard Unger spoke about the relationship between reading and typography and how it has evolved with technology. As an example, he cited the way an iPhone user can easily enlarge a font without affecting the typography. Doing this with a book would render it illegible, as the spacing would change and words would be cut off. View his talk
here.
Javier Gimeno-Martínez, a VU University lecturer in design cultures, closed the event with a talk placing the scholarly study of design as culture into historical perspective. The United Kingdom has led the field in Europe, he said. But VU University will play a key role in its development in the Netherlands, thanks in part to its new Design Cultures course. For a video of his talk, click
here.
Attendees met for drinks after the symposium at Grand Café Amsterdam Bright City.
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Design-focused cultural studies isn’t yet as big as design history or theory, but its time has come, says Timo de Rijk of VU University and Delft University of Technology. “People are aware that design is a field of culture that communicates in a strong as well as easy-to-understand way, compared to, for example, modern art.”
Interest in design within the academic field of cultural studies is growing. Such an approach enables a researcher to look at design critically. He or she considers it as a cultural process and a social, economic and political instrument and takes into account production and consumption.
“It’s great to be a designer,” says De Rijk, “but these days it’s at least as interesting to be a critic or someone who deals with design theory, and writes about and gives meaning to design. You can design a vase, but it remains a vase until someone writes about it.”
Premsela supports the serious academic study of design and seeks to further it. In the coming years, Premsela will work closely with VU University to help shape cultural discourse around design in the Netherlands.
