In design education the acquisition of practical manipulative skills are usually considered as necessary stages in the development of creative and personal intellectual responses. In contrast, anthroplogical theory, in particular approaches to production derived from material culture theories, credits objects and their associated manual techniques with the agency to influence practitioners. Jean-Pierre Warnier (2001), starting from this position, and relating it to Schilder’s concept of the perceived body image, Foucault’s theory of subjectification, and Tisseron’s psychological theory of symbolisation, has constructed a theory of praxeological subjectification. After providing an exposition of the theoretical underpinning of this central conceptual term, the following paper explores how observations from design education can be used to provide evidence that this process is occurring in design practice and considers both the positive and negative implications that its prior existence, or its development, may have on design students. Lastly it proposes productive avenues for further research relating to the subject.