Design studies can refer to any design-oriented studies but more formally is an academic discipline or field of study that pursues, through both theoretical and practical modes of inquiry, a critical understanding of design practice and its effects in society.
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Design studies encompasses the study of both the internal practices of design and the external effects that design activity has on society, culture and the environment.
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Susan Yelavich explained design studies as embracing "two broad perspectives—one that focuses inward on the nature of design and one that looks outward to the circumstances that shape it, and conversely, the circumstances design changes, intentionally or not".
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An interdisciplinary field, design studies includes many scholarship paradigms and uses an evolving set of methodologies and theories drawn from key thinkers from within the field itself.
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Design studies scholars recognize that design, as a practice, is only one facet of much larger circumstances.
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Shift from design history towards design studies continued to develop as the overlapping research methods and approaches to the study of design began to lead to broader questions of meaning, authority and power.
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Victor Margolin distinguishes a degree in design from a degree in design studies by saying that "the former is about producing design, while the latter is about reflecting on design as it has been practiced, is currently practiced, and how it might be practiced".
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Design studies is concerned with the relationship between design and gender, design and race, and design and culture.
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Design studies has the capacity of structuring life in certain ways and thus design should result in greater good for individuals and society but it doesn't always do so.
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Design studies gave the example of a genetically modified tomato that is neither purely natural nor purely artificial.
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Design studies ethnography has become a common tool where design is observed as a social practice.
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Design studies Research Society is a learned society committed to promoting and developing design research.
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Design studies History Society is an organization that promotes the study of global design histories, and brings together and supports all those engaged in the subject—students, researchers, educators, designers, designer-makers, critics, and curators.
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