Discursive design basics: Mode and audience

Abstract

Presented within are four categories of product/industrial design practice, one of which, Discursive Design, is problematized regarding basic operational mode and audience. Two dimensions will be offered that provide fundamental structure for future theorization. Having emerged over the last two decades, increasingly critical practice is being developed within design’s art-based, exhibitive model, and also within the field of design research. Here the dimension of Terminal/Instrumental is posited as an operational modality, while the audience along this dimension is posited in terms of Internal/External participation.