Contemporary Design has found its philosophy !

by Laurent de Sutter

Design is the art of bringing enchantment to everyday life through form. But there is nothing magical about that enchantment, nor even artistic : it is the concrete result of a certain number of technical procedures specific to each designer’s task. Designers make projects. And because they make projects, the effect they seek to achieve is not limited to the conception of objects. It also implies an exhaustive vision of the world, extending even to include the dream of its future. Each one of a designer’s creations is an anticipated fulfilment of that dream. All the world has to do is follow... or not ?

When Stéphane Vial submitted his Short Treatise on Design, the great French designer Patrick Jouin (who wrote the foreword) remarked :

As a student, this book is the one I would have liked to read.

Difficult to imagine a more convincing indication of how Stéphane Vial’s book has filled an unimaginable void : contemporary design, a vital phenomenon in our times, had never been the subject of a book that attempted to think out its specificity ! There have been histories, of course, even manifestos, but until now, no philosophy — no thought. Now, with this Short Treatise on Design, that situation has been remedied. Contemporary design, in all its complexity and ambiguity, is contemplated as deeply as its importance for our times demands. Whether in its relation to capitalism, technology, the digital revolution or simply creation, Stéphane Vial, with astounding elegance and originality, identifies all the challenges.

Culminating in a magnificent theory of “the effect of design”, as well as in a theory of creation that takes account of the things design has transformed in our way of understanding art, his Short Treatise on Design, the only book of its kind in French language, will be the indispensable reference for all debate on the question in years to come.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Patrick Jouin : « Design, what does it mean ? »

I. The Paradox of Design.
Where the author states that design does think, but does not think about itself.

II. The Discourse Disorder.
Where the author deconstructs and reconstructs the word « design ».

III. Design, Crime and Marketing.
Where the author tells the horrible and terrifying alliance of Design with Capital.

IV. Beyond Capital.
Where the author pronounces the Moral Law of Designers.

V. The Effect of Design.
Where the author reduces the Quiddity of Design to three criteria.

VI. Making projects.
Where the author states that designers are not artists. 

VII. The concept of Interaction Design.
Where the author examines the consequences of digital revolution.

VIII. Inventing the future : what kind of innovation ?
Where the author seeks for the role of Design nowadays.

Postface. The System of Design.
Where the author demonstrates his principles in geometrical order style.

Supplement on line

Design as a « thing that thinks »
Where the author examines the concept of “Design Thinking” (fr)

Court traité du design (“Short Treatise on Design”)

• 128 pages

• 15.00 €

• ISBN : 978-2-13-058694-4
• Publisher : French University Press.

• Release date : 01/12/2010.

• Learn more about Foreign rights.

• Order on Amazon

Download the cover in large size (jpg).

Available translations

SWEDISH : Kort avhandling om design, Dolhem, 2011.
Publisher's presentation : “Our publising house, Dolhem Publishers, bring out books that inspire. This fall we will release the book "A Short Treatise on Design", written by Stéphane Vial, philosopher and teacher at the Ecole Boulle in Paris. From a lucid and fascinating perspective, Vial investigates design and the designer's role today. The book sets the relevant issues in a world where design has come to characterise great taste, and become a concept that is vaguely used to describe style and quality. Soon you can order the book through our website, or pre-oder it now via e-mail at bok@dolhemdesign.se.” More