Este artículo explora el impacto de la inteligencia artificial generativa (IAG) en el sector del diseño gráfico en España, analizando su adopción, usos y percepciones entre profesionales. La IAG ha transformado procesos creativos, pero también ha generado debates sobre su uso ético, posibilidades técnicas o el mismo futuro de la profesión. Objetivos: se plantearon nueve objetivos, entre ellos, explorar el nivel de adopción, analizar su impacto en procesos creativos, conocer el nivel de satisfacción, explorar preocupaciones éticas y examinar la percepción del crecimiento de competencia no especializada. Metodología: se recogieron datos a través de una encuesta con la que se obtuvieron 178 respuestas y 6 entrevistas semiestructuradas. La encuesta incluyó 38 preguntas divididas en cinco dimensiones y las entrevistas se analizaron siguiendo un enfoque de análisis temático basado en categorías predefinidas y emergentes. Resultados: el 71,35% de los encuestados utiliza herramientas de IAG, principalmente en las fases de inspiración y experimentación. Aunque la satisfacción media es moderada (2,26 sobre 4), prevalece una percepción optimista sobre su capacidad para aumentar la productividad y creatividad. Sin embargo, se identifican riesgos como la homogeneización del diseño o el intrusismo profesional. La formación en IAG es limitada, pero la mayoría considera necesario incluirla en los planes educativos. Conclusiones: la IAG representa tanto una oportunidad como un desafío para el sector. Su potencial para mejorar la eficiencia y potenciar el trabajo creativo es innegable, pero su integración requiere abordar preocupaciones éticas y reforzar el valor del trabajo creativo en un contexto de rápida transformación tecnológica.
Developing projects based on the circular economy is key to transforming traditional production models into sustainable and regenerative systems. In this context, Fab Labs are strategic spaces for experimentation, prototyping, and open innovation, where design, science, technology, and local knowledge converge around environmental challenges. Within this framework, the exploration of bio-based materials and their DIY (Do-It-Yourself) characteristics not only generates new materialities but also presents a unique opportunity for knowledge transfer to communities, fostering citizen ownership and active participation in the ecological transition. The article presents the Smartextil case study, developed at the ProteinLab Fab Lab at the Metropolitan Technological University (Chile). This project explores the convergence between biomaterials, electronics, and 3D printing applied to clothing design, also proposing a model for knowledge transfer from the Fab Lab to the community. The methodology includes experimentation phases, the creation of an open-source toolkit, practical workshops, and the final validation. The results show that, beyond the production of functional textile prototypes, the project achieved effective knowledge acquisition by the participants. It demonstrates that it is possible to establish alternative avenues of distributed education, capable of strengthening local innovation and offering alternatives to mass consumption. In conclusion, Smartextil is an effective strategy for empowering communities with sustainable tools, consolidating Fab Labs as catalysts for circular economies at the local level.
Desde el lanzamiento de la inteligencia artificial (IA) a escala de usuario han aparecido centenares de herramientas informáticas que realizan funciones que antes llevaban a cabo las personas. En este contexto de cambio, gran parte de las tareas informáticas van a ser influidas por la IA, entre ellas las desarrolladas en disciplinas creativas por redactores, fotógrafos o ilustradores. La profesión del diseño gráfico está siendo una de las más afectadas por esta innovación. Este artículo tiene en cuenta la teoría de la sustitución de Carl Benedikt Frey y Michael Osborne (2013) con el fin de proceder con un análisis de estas herramientas y encontrar su utilidad. Así, se observan cincuenta herramientas que incluyen inteligencia artificial para luego clasificarlas según la tarea que realizan y localizar las funciones estructurales de diseño que pueden ser automatizadas u optimizadas mediante la IA. A partir de estas, se explora cómo pueden incidir en la profesión en el futuro: en un escenario de optimización y en otro de sustitución. Los profesionales del diseño se enfrentan a retos tecnológicos constantes y la IA contribuye a acelerar el cambio.
En la era actual la inteligencia artificial (IA) ha revolucionado múltiples sectores, incluido el del diseño, que ha experimentado una notable evolución gracias a estos avances tecnológicos. La IA ha introducido nuevas herramientas que han tenido un fuerte impacto en las personas que ejercen el diseño; concretamente, en cómo realizan su trabajo y en las posibilidades que tienen a su disposición. Estas herramientas buscan generar un sistema colaborativo que potencie la creatividad y ofrezca soluciones. Este nuevo escenario genera una serie de interrogantes asociados a las habilidades y competencias de las personas que diseñan para afrontar el desafío de convivir con la IA y al mismo tiempo acometer una labor que será éticamente demandante teniendo plena conciencia del rol curatorial que pueden llegar a cumplir. Para las personas que ejercen el diseño siempre ha sido una obligación mejorar su calidad profesional. Por eso se han hecho cargo de renovar y adaptar sus habilidades y competencias en relación a los cambios socioculturales y tecnológicos que ha experimentado la humanidad. En esta ocasión, con la masificación de la tecnología y la IA, esta transformación adquiere un ritmo vertiginoso que no siempre lleva a tomar las mejores decisiones. Sin duda la IA ha generado y generará un impacto sin precedentes en el ámbito del diseño. De ahí que sea imperativo entender y definir un nuevo conjunto de habilidades y competencias que permitan a quienes diseñan convivir con estas herramientas tecnológicas que la IA nos entrega hoy y sacarles el mejor partido.
Within the conceptual framework of design for social innovation and democracy, this paper reports on implementing participatory processes in regenerating public spaces in semi-rural contexts, questioning the meaning of transformative innovation, servitisation, and agonism in non-urban contexts. This inquiry argues for exploring a reassessment of how we enact participatory public space regeneration strategies through their application in a remote context. The latter has been untouched by all the bottom-up initiatives and movements that have swept through European urban centres over the last fifteen years; returning to the urban space with these reflections could provide an opportunity to explore new perspectives, even in a saturated context, questioning the models of metropolitan practices. By challenging the paradigm of innovation as the only direction associated with a valid process of improvement and change, this paper delves into the urgency of looking at co-design processes through the lenses of decoloniality, relationality and agonism, creating moments of reflexivity inside the research team and with the local community. Our reflections and learnings stem from “Human Cities / SMOTIES, Creative Works with Small and Remote Places”, a participatory design project that examines community engagement methods for co-designing public spaces and transformations in European rural areas, specifically Albugnano, a small town in northern Italy. Setting the Albugnano community as an experimental ground, the case study addresses the lack of valorisation of tangible and intangible heritage, depopulation and social fragmentation by unpacking narratives, nurturing social imagination, and collectively envisioning and designing potential regenerative transformations.
The rapid advancement and adoption of generative AI in creative and professional domains mark a significant evolution in technological interaction, raising pivotal discussions on its integration, usability and broader societal impact. This paper delves into the multifaceted challenges and opportunities presented by generative AI, focusing in particular on text-to-image tools and their integration into daily work practices of artists, designers, architects and researchers. As these creators increasingly incorporate AI's inherent unpredictability and ambiguity into their work, a critical examination of the ethical, legislative and environmental implications becomes imperative. We highlight how the User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) aspects of these groundbreaking technologies remain mostly underexplored. UX pioneer Jakob Nielsen has recently warned that professionals in the field must adapt to the fast-paced advancements in AI or become obsolete for an industry that is becoming pivotal in the contemporary creative field. He draws a parallel between the current AI era and the dot-com boom of the 1990s, highlighting how UX professionals were slow to adapt to the Internet, which led to missed opportunities and a lack of user-centred design. Consequently, the usability of generative AI tools is a paramount concern, especially as non-expert users increasingly engage with these systems. This paper explores the usability challenges, specifically the articulation barrier where users struggle to effectively communicate prompts to AI, and the consequent need for more intuitive and accessible interfaces. Through comparative analysis and a heuristic evaluation of four leading models, i.e. Midjourney, Dall.E, Stable Diffusion and Adobe Firefly, which presents a unique case study for comparison due to their divergent UI and UX elements, we aim to provide insights into the current state of AI tools and propose pathways for their responsible and effective use.
This special issue of Temes de Disseny explores the ethical, theoretical and practical roles of designers in the 21st century, focusing on design justice, community engagement, digitalization, AI, healthcare and social justice. In today’s world, beset by multifaceted crises, these changes must trigger a reflection on the strategic direction of design practice to keep its social and economic importance in society relevant and productive. Increasingly, designers are focusing on social and ethical considerations, ensuring their processes and outcomes align with sustainability, well-being, privacy and broader societal impact. This shift has sparked a growing interest in examining the complex role of designers through various lenses. This issue of Temes de Disseny delves into these topics through original research papers, case studies and a provocation.
This article examines the emerging field of Civic Design, which aims to combine design principles with civic ideals in order to tackle the growing complexity of societal issues. Civic Design suggests a new role for designers in society by emphasising values such as care, sensitivity, empathy, openness, inclusion, diverse perspectives, fairness, justice, the value of experiences, trust and democracy. Civic designers assume numerous roles as connectors, aggregators, network builders, advocates, activists, facilitators, intermediaries and decentralised actors within the civic sphere. The paper examines these stances and analyses them in relation to power as civic designers must navigate intricate power dynamics in order to foster more equitable civic interactions and work towards the common good. In order to do so, civic designers exercise their power in a responsible manner, recognising their own position and actively empowering a diverse range of actors while also considering the influence of more dominant individuals. The paper recounts part of the results of a PhD highlighting the potential of Civic Design to tackle intricate societal issues and promote inclusive, participatory and equitable community results by reframing power relations within commoning infrastructures and procedures.
In the current context, designers are faced with ongoing uncertainties and complexities, particularly at social and environmental levels. Amidst these evolving circumstances, design can act as a catalyst to steer innovation towards enhancing quality of life, positioning itself as a tool for the enhancement of the well-being of the environment, community and individuals.In such complex contexts, it is crucial to highlight the importance of design's ethical responsibility not only concerning its role within a project process, but also in preserving the ecosystem, its resources and its interactions.From this perspective, the approach of Responsible Advanced Design (RAD) emerges, a method based on actions, tools and RI-oriented strategies aiming to support the development of new design models focused on creating products and services that consider the impact of design decisions from the initial stages and taking into account the diversity of the actors involved.In this context, the need to reaffirm the principle of design responsibility is underscored and, associated with the principles of sustainability and various dimensions of responsibility, leads to the pursuit of “Design Endless Responsibility” in design processes and designer training.This analysis brings forth a conceptual model that merges the dimensions of environmental and social sustainability with the RAD approach, useful both for interpreting complex contexts with a more integrated vision that is attentive to various aspects of sustainability and as a tool to promote more effective actions attentive to tangible and intangible factors of sustainability throughout the project phase.This conceptual model finds its first application in the context of Italian entrepreneurial culture (Made in Italy) and is currently being tested in a nationally-funded research project.
This paper explores the possibilities of graphic languages in an intercultural context while analysing the potential of creative methods when working with refugee youth. The practice-based aspect of this research is undertaken with Open Doors Hungary, a community-based design project that creates a programme for unaccompanied refugee minors. The aim of Open Doors is to help young refugees integrate into Hungarian society and develop means of communication and quality relations with the host society. Refugee youth arriving in Hungary face serious problems: the loss of home and community, the traumas suffered during the journey, the cultural differences, and the lack of a common language make their social integration extremely challenging. These challenges are exacerbated by xenophobia and stereotypical opinions about foreigners. Social inclusion requires frequent contact with the local society, and refugee youth need new tools (cultural knowledge, language skills, intercultural skills) to overcome their disadvantages. Since 2013, the author has been working with refugee youth using participatory design tools such as regular creative sessions, workshops, and eight camps based on the integrating role of creativity and art. During these sessions, young refugees and their Hungarian and European peers learned about different visual communication tools and created common messages in the form of videos, animations, photos, posters, booklets, and murals. Through these activities, refugee youth become part of the design process, and the final result is based on their choices. In the theoretical research and field experiences, this paper states that design thinking and the creative process allow interactive cultural exchange, value sharing, safe and open discussions, and community building. As a global language, visual communication can be a tool for intercultural communication, storytelling, and self-expression. The opportunity for refugee youth and their Hungarian peers to work in intercultural teams develops new competencies and creates shared ownership and community.
How is the designer to approach questions of responsibility, obligation, or right and wrong in relation to their role in creating, sustaining and altering the complex worlds which we inhabit together? Every design decision stands as the first teetering domino at the head of an infinitely complex fractal chain reaction of consequences, the full repercussions of which are ultimately unforeseeable. The moment of ethical crisis – being faced with a range of possible options and lacking a fully adequate knowledge of which path is best to choose – is an unavoidable component of the design process. Ethical theories, principles, codes and rules always lag one step behind the frontier of the new, the territory in which design operates. Recognising that ethical crisis is an integral reality of the design process, how can designers be best supported and equipped for this challenge? This paper explores one path towards this aim, presenting the case for the use of philosophical thought experiments as appropriate and useful devices for developing capacities for ethical thinking and for nurturing a transformed ethical mindset within practising designers. Thought experiments do not directly guide or provide knowledge or answers as to the ‘right’ thing to do in any given situation. Rather, the argument is presented here that thought experiments can stimulate productive conditions in which designers can learn not to ‘know ethics’ but to ‘think ethics’. By playing these mind games, the designer can exercise and strengthen their mental capacities for responding to ethical encounters within the complexity of real-world design practice.
This case study investigates how the digital transformation of urban design governance following the COVID-19 outbreak has led to changes in approaches to citizen participatory design in Seoul, South Korea. Drawing on empirical data from the Seoul Citizen Design Bureau – an annual participatory program initiated by the Seoul Metropolitan Government since 2015 – and interviews with facilitators and participants, the study ethnographically examines the emergence of new local design actors amid unforeseen circumstances like the pandemic. The research sheds light on the diverse capacities and intermediary roles of digital collaboration tools such as ZoomTM and MuralTM, which not only enabled citizen involvement in design during the pandemic but also challenged established practices in institution-driven participatory design in Korea. By contextualising this analysis within a turbulent historical juncture, the study demonstrates the effectiveness of remote ethnography in uncovering the influence of “more-than-humans” in participatory design within the unique sociocultural setting of South Korea.
Design education is characterised by its experiential and practice-oriented approach, emphasising active engagement with projects. The pedagogical focus is on developing individual styles, professional stances, and a receptive attitude towards novel experiences, aligning with the evolving landscape of the design profession. This study explores community engagement in student projects as a means to establish a co-deciding and co-learning infrastructure in the design studio. This participative and democratic approach challenges traditional hierarchies in higher education, transforms the student-instructor relationship, and aligns educational practices with the evolving requirements of the design profession. The study investigates students' insights into co-learning with the community through scenario-building. A workshop conducted with twelve fourth-year undergraduate industrial design students and the thematic analysis of the findings revealed that educational community engagement projects employing inclusionary methods motivate students and foster a positive attitude towards shifting power relations within a democratic design studio structure. The findings also highlight the need for a clear focus, a set of principles for successful engagement, and conflict resolution in the co-learning process, as well as the generative potential of scenario-building as a method for inclusive practices.
Faced with what we could consider an act of connivance with the prevailing neoliberal model of leisure and production, the designer has become an apolitical, naïve and blind subject, immersed in the unthinking action of unlimited production. Humanity must feed 8 billion people while at the same time guaranteeing both its survival and the sustainability of the planet. Given this challenge, design must resituate the subject at the centre of the model in all its fields and specialities. This repositioning must come from a politicised, eco-centric and left-wing perspective to become an engine of social change, clearly and openly confronting extreme neoliberalism and its constant growth curve, a model that has placed humanity in a process of programmed self-extinction due to the prioritisation of earnings and profit over our own existence. The upcoming generations of design professionals will play a crucial role in the planet’s future. We are facing a challenge of capital proportions in which all actors in society and the market, among which design is one of the most relevant, will have to work together in unison. From within the interconnected international system that the academy represents, it falls on us to promote and encourage new attitudes that facilitate the repositioning of designers, removed but not alien to the perverse complexities of the extreme neoliberal market. For and because of this, we seek to enervate consciences and promote reflection in pursuit of the consequent revolt, which, if disregarded, will condemn us to failure as a society and as a species.
In this article we examine the experiences of the first and second author who have changed themselves to become newly attuned to the sun, or who have “become solar”. Motivated by calls to approach solar design in novel, less technocratic ways, we reflect on their one-year journey to gain a new relationship with solar energy as an explicitly more-than-human design (MTHD) approach. We argue that their perception of solar energy progressively worked to decentre them as human actors in this new solar-energy arrangement, revealing other nonhuman actors at play, instigating situations of care and attention to those nonhumans and ultimately guiding them towards what it means to be solar. For solar design, we see this approach as creating a new lens for solar designers to draw from. For MTHD, we see this acting as a practical example for designers seeking to begin transforming themselves in their own practice by taking initial steps towards a MTHD approach.
Racial justice activists tend to turn to science fiction to imagine better, freer worlds. Speculative futures in design are rarely fantasy-based. Design speculation relies more on unfamiliarity and exaggeration than fantasy to challenge assumptions and norms. This paper proposes that design, futuring, and utopian thinking can offer a new path to justice movements, and a new purpose for speculative design, to envision optimistic long-term possibilities based on realism. Designers, with their unique ability to ‘change existing situations into preferred ones,’ can build realistic and plausible visions of equitable, liberatory worlds. Such visions that amplify the missions of justice efforts can help enlist new supporters and motivate advocates through complex, disruptive change. This article describes eight workshops structured to explore the value of imagining radically hopeful visions co-created through critically conscious collaborative futures. In each workshop, designers acted as facilitators to help foster solution-finding with participants from various racial justice projects in both community and academic organisations. Workshops introduced participants to the joy and strength of thinking about long-term futures. Still, their visions often did not last beyond the workshop. Only in later workshops, when design prompts provided new formats for evoking participants’ futures, did their visions become tangible and long-lasting. The results show that designers’ creative skills can complement and give shape to the deep knowledge of justice advocates.
This pictorial confronts the urgent need to shift design practices in response to the past and ongoing destruction of habitat structures and the resulting losses of biodiversity. To do this, it illustrates the first iteration of I.N.S.E.C.T. Wall Twin: an architectural installation that endeavours to support coexistence between local insects, fungi, and humans. The installation is an outcome of the workshop “Interspecies Exploration by Bio-Digital Manufacturing Technologies'' during the first part of the I.N.S.E.C.T. Summer Camp (Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, August 2022). The 9-day workshop brought together a group of four organisers and nine selected participants to engage with the challenges of designing for and with other living beings. Aiming to develop novel approaches to creating urban habitat structures, the workshop involved parametric design, clay 3D printing, mycelium-based composites, and freeform crocheting. We explored questions of interspecies design by prototyping objects iteratively while conversing and reflecting. Our discussion lists the insights we gained from this process of collaborative and critical making. We offer suggestions for involving a range of human and nonhuman stakeholders in design; reflect on practical and ethical questions when working with living materials; identify challenges of foregrounding nonhuman needs while dealing with technical or logistical constraints; and outline ways to approach the complexity of intervening in ecosystems. These considerations may help inform the future work of designers who want to integrate the perspectives of multiple species into their designs. As a living laboratory undergoing continual monitoring, I.N.S.E.C.T. Wall Twin provides a useful foundation for developing further iterations and a community that exceeds the duration of the camp. --- The first and second authors contributed equally to this work
The word “literacy” has come to be used to describe a wide range of competencies, including design literacy – a term that, despite its presence in design discourse, is still characterised by a certain fuzziness. In this paper, we explore this highly discursive theoretical field in order to gain a more nuanced and expanded understanding of the topic. In doing so, we argue that these divergent positions are also due to the ambiguity of the term “design”. We understand design as the perpetual de- and reconstruction of the world, as a way of worldmaking, both physically and conceptually. Thus, design literacy can be understood as a way to perceive traces of design and its processes, to perceive the world as contingent: a circular cognitive process of recognising that something – if not everything – in our cultural pluriverse is designed, understanding how it was designed and that it can potentially become the subject of design again and again. In our paper, we emphasise the contingency of design – and the ethical level that can arise from understanding the possibility of a different design. Ultimately, our aim with this paper is to emphasise that design literacy is a crucial competence for encouraging pluralistic perspectives and initiating transition processes, as it helps to acknowledge the temporary necessity but long-term non-necessity of things (which particularly includes the transitory nature of one’s own creations).
The practice of ecological restoration spans a wide range of human interventions in socio-ecological systems. These interventions include activities ranging from plant propagation to river rerouting, and are done with the intention of bringing about desirable futures in response to ecosystem degradation. Through restoration, post-industrial sites have been transformed into thriving oases, and forests decimated by severe fire have been revegetated. This ever-expanding global body of work offers concrete, longstanding examples of people working together to design for transitions and create restored human habitats. In this paper, I frame this widespread movement of multiple epistemic cultures and their restorative projects as examples of designing for transitions. This paper concentrates on one specific subculture within restoration: the international Ecosystem Restoration Communities movement, which is a network of more than fifty restoration communities across thirty different countries working at the grassroots level to restore degraded land. I analyse the case of the Ecosystem Restoration Communities movement using the lens of “theories of change” from the Transition Design framework, bringing the two fields into conversation. Transition Design scholarship argues for greater consideration of the theories of change that drive designing. As such, those who design for transitions need concrete examples of how a theory of change may be translated into a design strategy and designed artifacts as part of a change-making process. To this end, I present four themes of change theories present in the Ecosystem Restoration Communities network. I discuss how they are translated into restoration approaches and subsequently into designed artifacts through individual Ecosystem Restoration Communities. I present this case to strengthen the connection between designing for transitions and restoration, as well as to illustrate how theories of change can guide the work of designing transformative change.
Unlike a poem or a song, an object (designed and produced) and a space (designed and constructed) are invariably permeated by the power relations that have made them possible. For, regardless of the intention of the participating agents, designs cannot help but convey the values that sustain, justify and prolong the power relations that have facilitated their existence. With this in mind, especially in the case of the new digital technologies, designers, beyond simply offering a final solution, are increasingly concerned with controlling and influencing the parts of the production process where the social, labour and ecological implications determine, more than just the form itself, the ethical and political value of the design. And of all the political aspects involved in the design process, one holds particular importance: environmental conservation. The immediacy of the environmental crisis that faces us begs the question: what if, instead of coming up with new designs, we devise a way to not design? We cease to produce. There are many examples of this. After all, any product, no matter how small its ecological footprint, will always be pollutant if its purpose is superfluous and non-essential. Other cultures and time periods, such as the Japanese culture prior to the 1960s, demonstrate how some products we believe to be essential are in fact contingent and could quite easily not exist at all. Chairs are a prime example of this.
