Popular science material by Ye. V. Siryi and S. S. Dembitskyi, Doctors of Sociological Sciences: “Design as a social phenomenon: the history of society told through things”

The website of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine has published a popular science material by Ye. V. Siryi and S. S. Dembitskyi, Doctors of Sociological Sciences, "Design as a social phenomenon: the history of society told through things"

Look around you. The cup you drink your coffee from, the smartphone in your pocket, the chair you are sitting on, the app you have just used — all of these are products of design. Design is present in everything people do and make: it has shaped our world since time immemorial and continues to shape it today. It intersects with art, architecture, advertising and craft, yet retains its own integrity — it is design that gives functional things their form and their appeal.

Design, however, is not only about beauty and convenience. It is a powerful social phenomenon in which, as in a mirror, the organisation of a society, its hierarchies, values and conflicts are reflected. The British philosopher Christopher Caudwell compared art to a pearl inside a shell. A sociologist studying design is interested less in the “pearl” itself than in the “shell” — the society that produced it. In this sense the sociology of design studies the social world through the history of things, and conversely the history of things through the social world.

For more detail see the full material.