DESIGN VOCABULARIES

A ‘MACROSCOPE’ FOR SYSTEMATIC OBSERVATIONS OF DISCIPLINARY FIELDS

Abstract

Design Vocabularies is a visual inquiry into the semantic spaces of design; an attempt to surface, compare, and track the word-worlds that different communities use when “design” is discussed. The (academic) design community has been always grappling with those questions: what do we actually mean when we say design? How do those meanings shift across academic research, professional practice, and public discourse? Framed this way, the project treats every mention of design as an entry point into a larger, relational vocabulary—terms like method, process, research, medium, practice—whose associations reveal how the field positions itself and evolves over time.

Housed within the Center for Design’s Design Observatory, the project functions as a lens of a broader “macroscope,” a conceptual, visual, and operational instrument meant to observe complex systems by integrating multiple methods and viewpoints. The Observatory’s mission is to observe and represent design as an adaptive, interdisciplinary system; Design Vocabularies concretizes that mission by mapping how design is spoken about, rather than seeking for a uni!ed de!nition or prescribing what it should be.