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  • Scaling Down: Why Designers Need to Reverse Their Thinking

Myerson, Jeremy, 2017, Journal Article, Scaling Down: Why Designers Need to Reverse Their Thinking She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 4 (2). pp. 288-299. ISSN 2405-8726

Abstract or Description:

The growth model of the 20th century required that designers and companies achieve economies of scale. Scaling up involved abstraction to make large-scale production possible for the global industrial economy. In the 21st century, social challenges are increasingly disrupting world markets. This changes the focus of the design process. Designers once needed to learn just a little about large groups of people to serve mass markets. Today, they must learn a great deal about relatively small numbers of people. They must shift from concentrating on what makes groups of people similar to what makes them different. This article explores the process of “scaling down” by describing key principles. It examines these principles at work in three case studies from The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design to develop a lighting system for inner-city housing estates, a planning tool to create better workplaces, and a suicide-prevention strategy for a public health black spot.

Official URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/...
Subjects: Creative Arts and Design > W200 Design studies
School or Centre: Research Centres > Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design
Identification Number or DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2017.06.001
Date Deposited: 26 Apr 2018 14:15
Last Modified: 01 Apr 2020 16:17
URI: https://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/id/eprint/3411
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