The exploration of new types of everyday interactions enabled by the increasing integration of digital technologies with the physical world is a major research direction for interaction design research (Dourish, 2004), and a focus on materials and materiality is also of growing significance, e.g.: Internet of Things; interactive architecture; the intersection of craft and technology. Increasingly, designer-researchers from a range of material-focused creative design disciplines are starting to address these themes. Previous studies indicate that new approaches, methods and concepts are required to investigate the evolving field of physical-digital synthesis in the built environment. Addressing this, the thesis asks one central question: What resources for design research can help practitioners and researchers from multiple creative design disciplines improve the design of physical-digital artefacts located in the public realm? A detailed Scoping Study explored experimental research methods for this thesis and produced an overview of physical-digital artefacts in outdoor public space. This scoping influenced the subsequent research: an in-depth field study of the design culture and practices of fifty material-focused designer-researchers; four case studies of physical-digital artefacts in outdoor public spaces; a formative creative design workshop with fourteen participants to test the findings from the research. The chief contribution of this thesis to interaction design research is the development of two resources for design research (the Experiential Framework and the Conceptual Materials for Design Research) and the practical application of these new tools as a method for design research in a simulated ‘real-world’ creative workshop setting. Both resources are intended to co-exist and be integrated with established design research methods and emerging approaches. Hence, the outputs from this thesis are intended to support designer-researchers from a range of creative design backgrounds to conceptualise and design physical-digital artefacts for urban outdoor public spaces that provide richer interaction paradigms for future city dwellers.

This practice-based research sets out to investigate and intervene in the tense relationship between the production of socially and politically relevant design work and the socio-economic precariousness many designers experience. Starting from an engagement with the precarious working conditions of designers, their genealogy over the last 30+ years and the role precarisation plays in forming docile creative subjects, the research moves on to a wider critique of the political economy and its precarising value practices. Based on this analysis, it then considers the strategic possibilities of mobilising design practices around commonly produced, used and reproduced resources in order to undo procedures of precarisation. The trajectory of this process of exploration is shaped by a series of practical experiments constructed around the inhabitation of micro-economies of support that allowed for a collective engagement with the issues and strategies researched. These inhabitations took as their starting point the resources my own design practice, Brave New Alps, was offered throughout the course of this research. Thus, they took the form of two shared residencies, one of three months in Warsaw (My castle is your castle) and a second of two months in Milan (Cantiere per pratiche non-affermative), out of which a design collective emerged that still works together. It is the experience of living through these support structures that directs the engagement with theory in order to establish decisive elements to overcome blockages and loops in practice. The core elements that emerged as helpful in moving this research forward were characterised by an engagement with how designers are trained to accept and reproduce the conditions that precarise them, with how this training inserts itself in the wider logic of a capitalist economy and, finally, with how noncapitalist values can serve as points of orientation for constructing de-precarising design practices. In considering these key points, the aim of this research is to provide a series of both conceptual and practical tools for designers that can be mobilised in the creation of economic cultures that defy precarisation within and beyond the field of the profession. However, the research is not primarily concerned with stabilising pre- carious design practices as they are, but rather with creating conditions in which it is possible for designers to imagine and actuate what they could become when not pressured by precariousness to conform to the needs of the market.

‘Good communication’ is often the assumed objective for the field and practice of communication design. But in attempting to facilitate ‘good communication,’ designers may potentially overlook the qualities of participation in communicative arenas that shape normative constructs of the publics of communication. At the same time, they might not attend to the particular political formations that emerge from and mobilise communication. I propose and develop the concept of miscommunication and the practice of miscommunication design as a way to query these assumptions from within communication design. Because communication design has become more centrally involved with socially and politically engaged design practices, approaches to communication are critical for taking account of how political engagements unfold. In this study, I explore that which diverts from ‘good communication,’ by exploring miscommunication as a powerful and transformative part of communication that could generate new modes of practice and recast the field of communication design as a diverse activity open to eco-political modalities of practice. I develop this research by analysing a set of creative practice projects that work through and trouble communicative actors and settings. I further support these analyses through the development of a set of exploratory practices that explore sites of political encounters and political possibilities. Drawing from the work of Michel Serres and Isabelle Stengers, I work through three figures of miscommunication, including the parasite, the idiot and the diplomat. With these figures, I expand on distinct possibilities for a practice in miscommunication design by investigating forms of noise that interfere with good communication, by working with impasses to communication through apparent moments of nonsense, and by setting up translational encounters shaped by miscommunication. On the basis of working through these three figures of miscommunication, I propose a set of inventive practices that seek to multiply modes of encounter and political formations within the field of communication design. These inventive practices are structured as ‘political scenes,’ a concept and term that draws on the work of Stengers and that refers to a practical grounding of the political. Political scenes can challenge common communication design practices by working with miscommunication that emerges from specific situations. Moreover, political scenes reposition the designer as a participant in communication who is informed by the affective, performative and material dimensions of communication, and is also seen as an interfering part of communication. In this way, political scenes can foster and explore a new set of connections and communicative formations that matter to the field of communication design because they create the possibility for new qualities of participation in communicative arenas, which may in turn give rise to new political ideas and questions, along with new possibilities for collective formations.

This research has arisen from an awareness of the emerging discourses about the future of design education in Korea. The country today is synonymous with advanced technology and high-quality products made by companies such as Samsung. The development of capacity for creativity and innovation in design has not yet been successfully implemented, and it has been argued that much of the responsibility lies with the education system. Currently Korean design education is focused on function, technology and solutions as well as aesthetic values; it drives students to be technically capable without understanding the value of design as a cultural activity. In order to tackle this issue, Korea has been introducing various initiatives in its design education system. These initiatives have focused on the convergence of design specialisms, as well as other disciplines outside of design. Parallel to these, this thesis suggests Cross-Cultural Design (CCD) as one of the possible elements that could aid this transformation. The findings of this thesis suggest that it is important for design students as well as educators to realise design is an activity of cultural production that can improve the quality of our lives. Cross-Cultural Design is not a new concept. There are many definitions and practical implementations found in the various fields of study and within the design industry. Although considerable efforts are being made to explore and understand cross-cultural relationships as a result of globalisation today, there has been limited discussion about cross-cultural concerns from a design practice context. Previous studies on cross-culture have focused almost exclusively on anthropology, sociology and more recently, international business and marketing. This thesis, therefore, seeks to address this gap by examining the potential of Cross-Cultural Design (CCD) practices and develop a Cross-Cultural Design (CCD) educational framework for Korean higher education that encourages designers, design students and Korean universities to become more culturally engaged. Firstly, this thesis begins by examining the current issues facing the Korean education system in Chapter 2. Chapters three and four discuss a general contribution to new knowledge by exploring the key characteristics of CCD, which are: 1) Cross-cultural understanding - understanding the cultural context for designers and the design concepts derived from an in-depth understanding of cultural differences. 2) Originality - enriched creative outputs from cross cultural practice. An ability to think creatively and design whilst retaining unique and novel ideas. 3) Practicality - new design ideas from mixing cultural codes/needs. Creation of usable design for everyday life through combined cultures. 4) Universal design - consolidated cultural needs to achieve Universal design ideas, when appropriate. Universally understandable design with minimised cultural errors and misunderstanding. 5) Cultural identity - celebrating cultural specificity to promote core identities, when appropriate. Cultural identity is also defined through culturally distinctive design, which plays an important role in structuring the Cross-Cultural Design reflection tool and template by providing a set of criteria. The five key characteristics of Cross-Cultural Design presented above are based on various findings of what constitutes the elements within the CCD model (Chapter 3 & 4). This thesis investigates design education through the development of intensive project-based short course learning activities in Chapter 5. As part of the study, five of these CCD short course activities were conducted over five years, starting in 2010. The programmes were developed and conducted in collaboration with Goldsmiths, University of London (UK), Kyung Hee University (Korea), and the Korea Institute of Design Promotion (KIDP). The focus of these education programmes moved from the inspirational benefits of cross-cultural experience, to the practicality and marketability of culturally engaged design. As a result, a CCD learning model was proposed and developed. This thesis concludes that the CCD learning model can help give a new direction to Korean design education in order to make it more process-oriented, whilst paying attention to cultural issues. This model of education could help create more user-oriented and culturally located design. Korean design education is traditionally built on art education. Cross-Cultural Design education can provide a socio-cultural contribution to the education framework, and introduce a methodological approach to designing as a cultural activity, as well as a reflective approach. Secondly, systemic problems in Korean design education means it is currently not able to meet the social and industrial demands and changes required in a developing Korean society. This thesis proposes that Cross-Cultural Design education can help develop a wider spectrum of design fields, such as convergence design education. Lastly, with regards to social problems, Korean design education suffers from a narrow conception of the possibilities of design, and does not recognise that design can extend to work with other subjects within the university. However, Cross-Cultural Design education helps students and designers understand the importance of design in our everyday lives, and more importantly, the significance of culture within design activities. In a broader context, educators can also benefit from diverse teaching methodologies; supporters such as governments can promote their national culture and boost their design industries. More importantly, consumers will have access to culturally rich and diverse products and services. The potential input of this CCD framework is to contribute to transforming Korean higher education. This framework could also be applied to other geographical contexts, but this is outside of the scope of this thesis.

It was noted by the researcher that living and working in Puerto Rico, in what are politically and socio-economically difficult and sometimes threatening conditions, at the time of this programme of research, there was something to be learnt from those designers who exhibited resilience to stressful events. Therefore, the specific purpose of this practice-led programme of research was to understand designers’ decision-making processes when under political and socio-economic stressors and question how they can make strategically successful decisions that enable them to thrive. The first objective was to identify and define resilient strategic thinking. To do this, the researcher reflected upon her own thinking and practices as an art director and design educator suffering the adversities of political and socio-economic disintegration in her own context. This self-reflective process revealed her use of a number of coping tools, which became the set of Real-Time Response Planning (RTRP) tools for managing adversity. The second tool’s objective was to explore the possibility of teaching strategic application of the RTRP tools to other designers who were also experiencing their own stressors. In review of designers’ engagement with these tools, the third objective was to develop an effective graphic articulation of the RTRP toolbox. This enabled the fourth objective, which was to measure the effectiveness of the RTRP toolbox in guiding designers towards radical resilience, towards bouncing forward as a more adaptive response to adverse conditions. The research was begun using the Reflective Practice and Action Research approach; however, critical review of its appropriateness within this social-political context of design practice moved the researcher to apply the Systematization of Experience method. A Systematization workshop was conducted applying Participatory Action Research and Participatory Design to the creation of the RTRP toolbox paper prototype, as a vehicle for observing the application of the RTRP tools during design practices. This programme of research found that the RTRP tools were able to positively support thriving and resilience as defined by the Resilience Theory. The toolbox successfully supported the teaching of resilience behaviours at a personal and local level, enabling the development of positive coping strategies in real-time, and informed the planning of longer-term strategies for similar adversities in the future. The current global economic crisis has left many designers with insecure futures, yet there is an expectation that they will carry on efficiently to maintain their livelihoods and lifestyles in the face of daily adversity. These RTRP tools offer designers a means of managing these experiences and help them see oportunities.

'Story of elsewhere' is made up of a number of interlinking parts, namely: a text component, a series of video interviews, an exhibition (also described as the thesis statement) 'Story of elsewhere' at the Stanley Picker Gallery in February of 2011, the book, 'Large Landscape', included in the Picker Gallery exhibition, and additional exhibition based materials a poster and a catalogue. All of these components of the work are linked and, together, act as remediations of the narrative of the work, its genesis, realization and its forms of expression. The central aspect of the exhibition is a series of video interviews that relate a number of stories - of elsewhere. 'Large Landscape' consists of a series of interlocking pieces that transforms hand written diary accounts into fiction, thoughts written at the time of realizing the work, notes about the making of the work, the intertwining of literary reference with imaginative interpretation, and anecdotal accounts - some of which are developed into detailed reportage. In addressing this multiplicity of narrative form, comparisons are made between the act of reading and that of writing, between seeing and hearing, between thinbking and feeling, between fact and fiction, between dreams and reality, between stranger and native, and between place and individual. In the exhibition there is an interpretative authorlal voice re-presenting what is heard with what is read, a shift between what is spoken of and what is portrayed. In 'Large Landscape', the process of reading takes the form of a written description of events. This array of formats is employed throughout to suggest the pervasive quality of narrative across experience. Plans of the future, recorded occurrences of the past, and compositions of the present are evoked through prose, scripting, description, memoir, folklore, commentary, and imagery. The methodology of collecting all this information ranges from interview to fabrication, from observation to intervention, and from complex engagement to simple expression. Within the framework of contemporary art practice and theory, 'Story of elsewhere' proposes distancing as a means of drawing nearer. Presenting the paradox of the idea that remoteness can produce proximity, a process is revealed that exposes previously hidden connections and associations - to oneself, to a place, and to another. This process, employing the language of memory, allows for a defamiliarization where new understandings emerge. My aim is to explore ever-shifting understandings of place, to offer an examination of the experience of witnessing place, to unpack the complications of subjective experience through the re-telling of remembered occurrences, memories that manifest through stories and that engage the interplay and paradox of language and naming, and to consider the inherent connections within memory of associations between the conscious and the unconscious. The connections between the different forms of the work: prose, scripting, description, memoir, folklore, commentary, and moving imagery, all interact to produce a subconscious cross-referencing. This mirrors the world we now inhabit with a place and complexity where this kind of multiple mediation of internet, TV, text, video, film etc., is pervasive and in a sense inescapable. Referencing becomes chaotic - we each find a way of navigating these elements in tandem or we select particular forms of mediation that align with how we connect and identify ourselves with others and with place. 'Story of elsewhere' seeks to address questions surrounding the place of individual experience in our complexly interrelated world, where place and images of places carry an overabundance of meanings. If the contemporary world is one where the fluid nature of individual memories easily overlaps with cultural memories, how do we come to know each other and ourselves in this landscape? In engaging with 'Story of elsewhere' it is my ambition that the viewer might answer such questions - to explore new ideas concerning self-knowledge, learned knowledge and knowledge that is sponsored by experiencing seemingly unconnected narratives, presented in multiples forms, in an investigation of place and association.

This research study builds an understanding of the relationship between storytelling approaches and their impacts at a design pitch, where concepts are presented to external clients. Storytelling is an integral part of design, with evidence of storytelling techniques found throughout the design process: from the use of digital media such as videos and animation during design pitches, to the use of personas and scenarios during research and evaluative phases. In building this understanding, a literature review was conducted to explore storytelling from a broad societal perspective and more specific organisational and design perspectives. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with employees from Unilever’s Household Care and Laundry departments, and Accenture’s Innovation Centre. Discussion centred on identifying storytelling approaches used by designers when pitching product and service concepts, and their relationships to various impacts, with student projects (at Unilever) and consultancy work (for Accenture) focusing the interviews. Thematic analysis was employed to establish themes in approach, building a framework of relationships with their determined impacts. The study’s contribution to knowledge is the presentation of a framework, entitled ‘Design Pitch Storytelling: The Impact-Approach Framework’. It builds on the current understanding of storytelling in design theory by identifying the important role that storytelling approaches play in the presentation of design concepts whilst offering insights into how designers use storytelling approaches in a design pitch. It serves as a descriptive tool offering an alternative viewpoint of the cases that may have a wider relevance to comparable large scale, internationally facing organisations and designers involved in similar design projects. In terms of an analytical process, this research study contributes further original knowledge in that it can be replicated to better understand existing working relationships between organisations and designers working on design projects in different contexts.

Three monographs and two chapters in edited volumes are submitted for this PhD by Publication. All cover aspects of contemporary design practice since about 1990 in the areas of furniture and related product design, ranging from industrial mass-production to craft and so-called ‘design art’. The introduction explores the context in which these works were written and published and establishes the author as a non-designer design expert, with knowledge about design practice but without design skill. This special position was established by my role as a curator of contemporary design in a national museum collection, and later as an academic. I examine how my perspective affected the ways in which I could write about design; as a privileged ‘gatekeeper’ to the domain of contemporary design practice, as a design historian, as a curator with a duty to interpret my subject for a broad non-specialist public, and as a specialist tutor of student designers. Therefore the main thrust of the PhD is established, which questions how to write about contemporary design practice. The methodologies for each published work are examined. Although they share common ground in a broad consideration of designers’ practices since about 1990 and the reception of their works by various markets, each was written from its own perspective. These vary from an emphasis on the design industry and its machinations, to a consideration of how the contemporary art market’s values have affected the production and distribution of one-off and limited edition design works, to a study focusing on the designers themselves and how their works are sometimes co-opted as agents of cultural diplomacy. Further reflection and theorizing about these works draws upon Actor Network Theory to establish structural relations between the subjects of the works – the contemporary designers – and myself as a non-partisan, but nevertheless complicit, commentator. With Nigel Whiteley and Kenneth Ames I seek to repudiate the constraints of ‘design history’, preferring a more plural and encompassing category of ‘design studies’ where diverse theoretical and structural influences can be brought to bear on writing about design. To this end, I propose a new theory of Performative Design, drawing on the linguistic ‘speech acts’ of J.L. Austin and John Searle, and the identity politics of Judith Butler, as a mechanism or lens through which we can interpret certain contemporary design practices.

This research identifies and addresses a critical knowledge gap on the discipline of editorial information design, a new area of data visualisation within the editorial environment. Due to the paucity of literature of the specific area at the moment of writing, this study aims to bring explicitness to design practices that remain, in research terms, largely unexplored. Literature supporting the emergent research, was examined from two key areas. Firstly by investigating general design theory and principles from well-developed design fields, and secondly by examining selected material from the established area of information design, reviewing essential concepts of information visualisation. With both areas combined, this ensured breadth and depth of research perspective and sensitised the researcher on critical issues later used to evaluate emerging material. To fulfil the aims of the study, interviewing was the primary method of data acquisition, with the Grounded Theory Method the selected methodology to analyse the data, as it was perceived as the most effective to capture tacit and empirical knowledge and connect it with practitioner activity. As a qualitative method it consists of practices that interpret data and makes the world visible, encouraging the researchers to be active and engaged analysts, utilising abductive reasoning on findings, even during the data collection. This effect informs and advances both areas as through forming iterative process, the abstract level is raised and analysis is intensified. The material highlighted the tacit, embedded in the act of designing, knowledge that practitioners of editorial information design possessed, informing the observed knowledge gap. The combined material was coded, juxtaposed, and refined through multiple analytic cycles, seeking emergent elements of critical activity of editorial information design, with the potential to define practice. The outcomes of the analysis are presented in structured form: emerging codes construct themes of designer activity, delineating essential operations and producing indepth descriptions grounded on empirical data. Cross-theme conceptual structures also emerge through further analysis, as abstract categories that capture designer operations in continuity and offer insight on how practice transitions between key stages. This study concludes with the presentation of a set of grounded theories, elucidating areas of editorial information design absent from the existing literature. While previously the design area remained obscure and implicit, leaving a lot to speculation, through this study key areas and activities become visible: elements directly associated with tacit designer action and design epistemology become explicit, revealing and defining the area under investigation.

The research reported in this thesis explores children’s perceptions of beauty. It investigates how children reflect upon and articulate their perceptions of beauty and examines how these perceptions relate to philosophical thinking about aesthetic experience. For the past 100 years, beauty has been marginalised in art and education and it is widely regarded as a problematic notion in a range of social and cultural contexts. Art educators have often portrayed beauty as a peripheral concern, and those who have studied children’s responses to artworks have tended to characterise their references to beauty as evidence of passive appreciation and a relatively low level of aesthetic development. In recent years there has been growing evidence of a revival of interest in beauty as a theme for reflection; however, to my knowledge, this is the first study to specifically research children’s perceptions of beauty. The theoretical part of the study examined two fields of literature, in terms of (i) art educators’ strategies for engaging children with art and (ii) philosophical theories of aesthetic experience. These sources influenced the design of the empirical part of the study, which consisted of 18 group interviews with 51 children aged 9-11 in two schools, one in inner London and the other in a rural village 40 miles from the capital. Before the interviews children completed two tasks independently in which they found and photographed images they thought were beautiful. Therefore there were two kinds of research data: (i) the images children found and photographed and (ii) the interview transcripts. A content analysis approach informed the interpretation of the images, while a number of themes that emerged from the interview data were identified and discussed in the context of the literature. The research findings indicated that children have diverse perceptions of beauty and that they are interested in a range of visual properties and expressive qualities of images. Children in one school tended to find beauty in images that reflected relationships, while those in the other judged the subjective nature of such images to be problematic. Children in the rural area often photographed landscapes, flowers and animals, suggesting their direct connection with nature influences their perception of it as beautiful. Those in London also found beauty in the natural world but preferred stylised, digitally generated representations of nature designed to appeal to the viewer. During the interviews children were often highly motivated to articulate their responses to beauty, and many reflected thoughtfully on their own and others’ images. Evidence suggests that children experience beauty in a wide range of contexts and that they variously understand it as an intersubjectively valid, shareable experience or, alternatively, as an individual experience. Several talked about beauty in ways that related to notions well-rehearsed in aesthetic theory while others, though less able to conceive or articulate such ideas, were nonetheless receptive to them when they heard them expressed. Photography played an important part in the research, and the findings suggest the medium has the potential to play a far more prominent role in art education as a means of expression. When combined with group interviews, photography can also be a highly effective method of understanding children’s perspectives on their experiences, and the study offers a useful model for researchers and educators to develop further. The research makes several contributions to knowledge. Firstly, it demonstrates that children’s experiences of beauty are often valuable and meaningful to them. Secondly, it provides evidence that children are motivated to explain their ideas about beauty and to engage with the ideas of others. Thirdly, it challenges previous assumptions in terms of both children’s aesthetic development and aesthetic preferences by highlighting the diversity and complexity of children’s perceptions of beauty.