Criticism and Function in Critical Design Practice

This article focuses on critical design as a field of industrial design practice. It considers some barriers and misconceptions to critical design practice being seen as part of a disciplinary project. The first part of the article reviews the criticism of critical design to identify inadequacies in how the criticism is grounded. Analysis of critical design practice often comes from perspectives developed in art and visual culture discourses. However, analyzing the practice from this perspective has limitations; instead, a more design-centric focus is needed.

The second part of the article discusses “function”—a concept often used to ground criticism of critical design practice but, again, one that has limitations. Function offers insufficient grounds for criticism and claims that critical design is not a form of product design because the objects do not “function” in a utilitarian sense. I explore the concept of function to show not only that an object’s function has the potential to extend beyond utility, efficiency, and optimization, but also that even in the strictest modernist sense, function has always comprised characteristics that move into post-optimal realms—beyond efficient use, utility, and practical specifications. I argue instead for an emphasis on the relational, dynamic characteristics of function, which supports seeing, and discussing, critical design practice in the same manner that other examples of orthodox industrial design are discussed.