Critical Design in Context

Critical Design is becoming an increasingly influential discipline, affecting policy and practice in a range of fields. Matt Malpass's book is the first to introduce critical design as a field, providing a history of the discipline, outlining its key influences, theories and approaches, and explaining how critical design can work in practice through a range of contemporary examples. Critical Design moves away from traditional approaches that limit design's role to the production of profitable objects, focusing instead on a practice that is interrogative, discursive and experimental. Using a wide range of examples from contemporary practice, and drawing on interviews with key practitioners, Matt Malpass provides an introduction to critical design practice and a manifesto for how a radical and unorthodox practice might provide design answers in an age of austerity and ecological crisis.

“Matt Malpass offers a much-needed introduction and overview to critical design, covering its histories, theories and practices in a delightfully straightforward and well-organised manner. Written in a clear and engaging style, the book presents a broad and inclusive approach to critical design.”

Matt Malpass introduces the boundaries of an increasingly influential subject area. Providing interesting examples, and making reference to interviews with key practitioners, a refreshing perspective is developed. This book is destined to become the definitive text of its type, and will be much sought by design researchers and practitioners alike. Michael Hann, Chair of Design Theory at the University of Leeds, UK
David Gauntlett, Director of Research at Westminster School of Media, Arts and Design, UK
Locating critical design as a response to the capture of (industrial) design by market logic, this book traces its historical and practico-theoretical antecedents as well as its salience among a plurality of like-minded contemporary design practices. Alex Wilkie, Senior Lecturer in Design at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
A text like this is long overdue. There has been a groundswell in interest in critical design for years. From globalism to materiality to the impact of social design, this project tackles some of the biggest problems in the field. Its ambitions are significant, as is its scope. Elizabeth Guffey, Professor of Art and Design History at the State University of New York at Purchase, USA

Matt Malpass is a Senior Lecturer on MA Industrial Design and a Research Fellow in Critical Design at Central Saint Martin’s College of Arts and Design, University of the Arts London, UK.

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