Design has transformed from an artistic handicraft into an engineering job. What was lost when aesthetics left the stage was the humanity of design.
Aesthetics
Aesthetics[a] is the branch of philosophy that studies beauty, taste, and related phenomena. In a broad sense, it includes the philosophy of art, which examines the nature of art, artistic creativity, the meanings of artworks, and audience appreciation.
Survival of the Prettiest (Published 2017)
Darwin’s theory of aesthetics may be the sexiest, most dangerous idea in evolution.
By Humans, For Humans – Mindful Design
Now, more than ever, we need to consider the real, human impact of the work we do. This is a fundamental principle of Mindful Design.
Designs for the pluriverse: radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds
"Arturo Escobar presents a new vision of design theory by arguing for the creation of what he calls 'autonomous design'--a design practice aimed at channeling design's world-making capacity toward ways of being and doing that are deeply attuned to justice and the Earth"--Publisher description
Design Justice
An exploration of how design might be led by marginalized communities, dismantle structural inequality, and advance collective liberation and ecological survival.
Design Justice
An exploration of how design might be led by marginalized communities, dismantle structural inequality, and advance collective liberation and ecological survival.
Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need
An exploration of how design might be led by marginalized communities, dismantle structural inequality, and advance collective liberation and ecological su
Why we’re still obsessed with 90s aesthetics in 2026
Decoding the visual cycle: how tactile 90s aesthetics bridge the gap between sterile tech and human emotion in 2026.
Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need
An exploration of how design might be led by marginalized communities, dismantle structural inequality, and advance collective liberation and ecological survival. What is the relationship between design, power, and social justice? “Design justice” is an approach to design that is led by marginalized communities and that aims expilcitly to challenge, rather than reproduce, structural inequalities. It has emerged from a growing community of designers in various fields who work closely with social movements and community-based organizations around the world. This book explores the theory and practice of design justice, demonstrates how universalist design principles and practices erase certain groups of people—specifically, those who are intersectionally disadvantaged or multiply burdened under the matrix of domination (white supremacist heteropatriarchy, ableism, capitalism, and settler colonialism)—and invites readers to “build a better world, a world where many worlds fit; linked worlds of collective liberation and ecological sustainability.” Along the way, the book documents a multitude of real-world community-led design practices, each grounded in a particular social movement. Design Justice goes beyond recent calls for design for good, user-centered design, and employment diversity in the technology and design professions; it connects design to larger struggles for collective liberation and ecological survival. The open access edition of this book was made possible by generous funding from Knowledge Unlatched and the MIT Press Frank Urbanowski Memorial Fund.
Home | Humane by Design
Guidance for designing humane digital products and services focused around digital well-being.
Making the Case for Actionable Prosocial Design Research
Regulating harmful design is only half the equation — attention must also go toward how platforms can build prosocial design, and toward the research that shows them how.
aesthetics
Aesthetics is relevant to many aspects of computing. Here, we are mostly concerned of the superficial visual appearances and their technological bases.
COMMUNITY-BASED, HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN
We propose a radical change in design from experts designing for people to people designing for themselves, leveraging the creativity of communities to solve their own problems. People in communiti…
On Design Thinking | Maggie Gram
By embracing “design thinking,” we attribute to design a kind of superior epistemology: a way of knowing, of “solving,” that is better than the old and local and blue-collar and municipal and unionized and customary ways. We bring in “design thinkers” — some of them designers by trade, many of them members of adjacent knowledge fields — to “empathize” with Kaiser hospital nurses, Gainesville city workers, church leaders, young mothers, and guerrilla fighters the world over.
Read the Principles — Design Justice Network
Design mediates so much of our realities and has tremendous impact on our lives, yet very few of us participate in design processes. In particular, the people who are most adversely affected by design decisions — about visual culture, new technologies, the planning of our communities, or the structure of our political and economic systems — tend to have the least influence on those decisions and how they are made.
