New craftsmanship in industrial design towards a transformation economy

Historically, design focused on ‘the giving of form and meaning,’ taking place in design studios, workshops or laboratories. Grown from a traditional craft (artisan) activity, design was often about creative problem solving. Meanwhile technology has been advancing, allowing designers to create highly complex interactive and intelligent products and systems in our everyday life. Through these new technological possibilities, new design opportunities can be explored. In our society we are currently facing a number of complex major challenges e.g., healthy living, the economic recession, safety and attaining a sustainable level of energy and material consumption. Disruptive innovations are needed to create structural and sustainable societal change to face these challenges. In many cases these innovations cannot be obtained through traditional problem-solving design approaches. This brings new challenges for modern designers and inevitably entails questions about design, the role of the designer and the design process. In this conceptual paper, we describe our proposal for a new craftsmanship of the designer, based on taking the design process into the wild towards real people in their own environments. By using a Research through-Design approach we see new roles for designers and accompanying crafts, competencies and design processes.