Profiling the designer: a cognitive perspective

The motivation for this research was twofold. First, despite the growth of design research in recent decades, little attention has been given to what the public understand of design, designing and the designer. This neglect is surprising. The 'public' is a deceptive term, meaning not just men and women on the street who might be picked up in a straw poll, but rather government agencies, funding bodies, industry, and all of those who commission design. This is a not insignificant group. Secondly, while numerous occupations have been investigated within the social sciences, designers have been overlooked. This article draws upon the results of the first large-scale investigation into the design professions. Its focus is upon the public's understanding of the design professions (interior, industrial, graphic, fashion and furniture), what they are and what they do. It approaches this from the standpoint of cognitive psychology whereby design and designers are constructs - or categories - within the minds of others. Such constructs compete for meaning with other similar constructs, and, in the case of designers, it emerges that they compete with the proximate constructs people have for artist and architect. The results reveal that designers are not all equal. Some, such as graphic designer, are moderately well understood. Others, such as industrial designer, are virtually non-existent within the public's occupational category structure, while furniture designer barely exists as a design category. In articulating these relationships it is clear that designers are positioned disadvantageously between the two powerful occupational constructs of artist and architect. Solutions to this problem are advanced