REFERENCING THE EVERYDAY IN DESIGN PRACTICE

The development of a designed artifact is inherently bound up with meanings relative to the individuals creating them, and to the context of their immediate and external environments. This paper explores the notion of everyday references being made during the design of an artifact, but more specifically, the social and cultural affects on the design process. This is achieved through elaborating on two ethnographically oriented studies based within the context of two design studios on different continents. The term reference is used here to describe the mode of communication that contains information about the artifact, the creator and the context. Speech and language are the central medium for references, and words and sentences contain and frame an immense amount of meaning. Language references are described here as the words and phrases that carry literal meanings that involve clear-cut relationships with the artifacts being created or the world they describe (Good, 2001). Along with references being represented through words and phrases, references in design may also be presented in the form of images (e.g. photographs, sketches). Goldschmidt (1998) defines references to include the precedents that designers openly reveal to have inspired them along with the points of departure that are not known as precedents. Therefore, it is acknowledged that references may or may not directly link to the artifact being created, and the use of everyday references in the design process can often be fleeting and ambiguous.

References
Goldschmidt, G., “Creative Architectural Design: Reference Versus Precedence”, Journal of Architectural Planning and Research, 15(3), 1998, pp 258-270.
Good, D., “Language and Communication”. in C. Fraser, B. Burchell, D. Hay and G. Duveen (editors), Introducing Social Psychology, Polity Press, UK, 2001, pp 76-94.