FROM CRAFTS TO COMMERCIALISM - THE MEDIASURFACES AND SPOKEN REALITIES OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Abstract

Industrial design is conducted in the realm of the economic world, as well as in the context of local prevailing cultural environments. This article shows how the designers present themselves, how the economical press represents industrial designers, and how these two worlds - the mediasurfaces and the spoken realities - differ from each other.

These two spheres, the private and public, are compared using two extensive sets of data, about 600 articles from the Finnish economical press and in-depth interviews with 25 industrial designers. This article suggests that although these two realities might differ from each other, they are also interconnected and in constant interplay with each other. The public image influences the way industrial designers present themselves, and the presentations of the designers influence the way the press writes about them.