Design for change

If the relationship between design and merchandise usually seems to be an intrinsic one, what is involved in such an analysis is a problem of shortsightedness. For a long time now, design has not been reduced to the industrialized and stylized production of objects. Design creates a ceaseless to-ing and fro-ing between the most state-of-the-art fields of the sciences and everyday life. It does not necessarily produce objects. It is not necessarily at the beck and call of a mercantile system. But, on the other hand, it may be critical thereof, and offer tangible answers to the development of alternatives. So design is also a matter of projection and exploration. Cross-disciplinary by nature, it lies at the crossroads of technological innovations and social, political, ecological and economic issues. Design is the turf of forward-looking ideas in the human sciences. It is also one of the tools making it possible to model and apply other community-oriented systems.
In cooperation with Design for change Label, Blackjack Editions thus proposes to take design as a matter of... design, by intent. Design for change brings together thinkers, researchers, sociologists, philosophers, architects, designers. Design for change aims to focus on new methods and experiments which help to conceive of the future by the yardstick of sustainable development. Because what is fairly and squarely involved here is tomorrow, this publication is fuelled by projects undertaken by students working in some of the most prestigious Design Schools, such as the Ecal in Lausanne, the Ensci in Paris, the Design Academy in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, the Ecole de design of Nantes Atlantique, the KHLIM of Genk, the Ecole de la Cambre in Brussels Belgium, the Ecole supérieure d'Art et de Design in Saint-Etienne, Karlsruhe University, and L'Alba in Beirut in Lebanon.