The product system

Teixido, Jordi (1997) The product system. PhD thesis, Middlesex University. [Thesis]

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Abstract

It was some years ago after practising as an industrial
designer that I experienced the power of design to convey meanings through the coordinated use of attributes which materialised out of a diversity of manufacturing processes. I was fascinated by the fact that a piece of transformed material, a curve or the enhancement of a product displayed in a shop could so strongly attract the attention of a viewer. I
was puzzled by the ability of certain designers to trigger evident or obscure connotations by the complexity of the shapes of their designs. Objects have the ability to define
groups of people or personalities by unconscious criteria. I observed how objects can influence cultures and nationalities and we find ourselves influenced and limited by their appearance, function and value. Can we say that designed objects function only as commodities or as marks of economic wellbeing?

At the beginning of this investigation my intention was to bring some answers to general questions like this. I realised that my research would involve investigating the most recondite accounts of philosophy, sociology and the theory of knowledge. I had to start from the very foundations of the complex act of understanding and, in order to organise all the different concepts, the research is constructed from three main sections.

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