Author Archives: Patricio Davila

Patricio Davila is Assistant Professor, Faculty of Design, OCAD University, Toronto. As a researcher, he has been involved in a variety of projects that incorporate design research, interactive and time-based media, including: Biomapping (investigating the representation of biometric data, movement and space through the creation of 2D visualizations and 3D objects); Information Design for Chemotherapy (field study with OCADU students and the University Health Network Healthcare Human Factors Group); Access For All (working with the Inclusive Design Research Centre at OCADU and the Ministry of Government Services on eLearning strategies).

Ortega-BeetleTrilogy3b

Criticality and Design: The Pursuit of Authenticity

March 2013 vol 1 # 1
Morality and the pursuit of authenticity have been of perennial concern to the practice of form-giving — specifically design. To design is to mark out; it involves separating out what is from what should be. Inherent in this process is the establishment of a need. Victor Papanek, for example, posits that “design is the conscious effort to impose meaningful order.” Whether this is the ordering of shapes and lines on a sheet of paper or the gathering of materials to create a tool, the designer engages in a quasi-rational process of selecting a goal and a means of achieving that goal.