Abstract
Recent strategic design and management discourse has identified gaps in the current framing of design for organisations, specifically highlighting a lack of discussions related to emergent design cultures and calling for a strategic framing of the art of design. Connecting and expanding these conceptual discussions with reflections from practice-based research through design, we seek to further the understanding of how design can be strategically translated into organisations. Drawing parallels between a strategic framing of design, and brands as enacted or manifested strategy, we present reflections from a design process of branding the strategic art of design for an academic research library. The outcome of our process was an overarching brand called Frilux, that manifested the strategic design approach at the library. Specifically, we propose that design can be framed strategically in an entanglement of organisational and design practices and mind-sets. Further, we suggest, this framing should be manifested across design outcomes that oscillate between intangible outcomes like strategic guidelines and values, to tangible outcomes like visual symbols and artefacts.
Keywords
strategic design; design for organisational change; branding; research through design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.540
Citation
Pandey, S. (2018) Entangling, Oscillating, Frilux-ing: branding the art of design, in Storni, C., Leahy, K., McMahon, M., Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Design as a catalyst for change - DRS International Conference 2018, 25-28 June, Limerick, Ireland. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.540
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Entangling, Oscillating, Frilux-ing: branding the art of design
Recent strategic design and management discourse has identified gaps in the current framing of design for organisations, specifically highlighting a lack of discussions related to emergent design cultures and calling for a strategic framing of the art of design. Connecting and expanding these conceptual discussions with reflections from practice-based research through design, we seek to further the understanding of how design can be strategically translated into organisations. Drawing parallels between a strategic framing of design, and brands as enacted or manifested strategy, we present reflections from a design process of branding the strategic art of design for an academic research library. The outcome of our process was an overarching brand called Frilux, that manifested the strategic design approach at the library. Specifically, we propose that design can be framed strategically in an entanglement of organisational and design practices and mind-sets. Further, we suggest, this framing should be manifested across design outcomes that oscillate between intangible outcomes like strategic guidelines and values, to tangible outcomes like visual symbols and artefacts.