How does design thinking relate to history, economy, and culture?

[tg22542]

After reading an article a few of you may have read before, Link: http://www.metropolismag.com/October-2009/The-Making-of-a-Design-Thinker/

There are a few questions I am curious about.

Design is not only the creation of prototypes for different machines/parts etc. But it can also be known as services, different ways to go at things to bring success, basically just new ways to see things.

In this article, the author explains how he was getting odd replies a while back to his designing and innovation company, IDEO, with people asking for things such as: Ways to restructure organizations, or a company wanting help learning how to understand it's clients better.

So how does this relate to the history of design, and our history in general?
Our economic climate?
Our culture?

My answer is that design relates to those three things because it plays a role in each, but I am having extreme trouble in finding what to say about how they relate. It has frustrated me to the point where I actually had to post the question on here. Any help?

Thanks

 

[Baluncore]

….but I am having extreme trouble in finding what to say about how they relate. It has frustrated me...

That is not engineering, that is a humanities problem.
The answer is that it simply does not matter one way or the other. There can be no right answer.
I would suggest that you find a humanities forum for what is clearly a psychological problem.
Your frustration with your own inability to reconcile the irreconcilable is quite understandable.

 

[analogdesign]

Keep in mind also, that the word "design" means different things to different people.

In the article you linked, they use "design" in the kind of aesthetic way, as in design of the look and feel of products. Like a fashion design, for instance.

Many people on this forum are technical, so to them typically "design" means "synthesis of new forms and structures based on scientific principles to meet specific goals". It's a very different activity.

So to me, the issue is that the author is mixing the two different senses of the word "design" and then getting rightfully confused.

As Baluncore said succinctly, this is trying to "reconcile the irreconcilable".