Page 194 - Design meets Business:An Ethnographic Study of the Changing Work and Occupations of Creatives

182 Design Meets Business
Overall Research Question:
How do creatives cope with their changing work and occupation as a result of collaborating with business?
Chapter
2.
Pixel Perfect:
Designers as Craftsmen
Research Setting
Fjord, Design Firm, Spain.
Specific Research Question
How do designers as craftsmen cope with changing material prac- tices at work?
Key Findings
* Work of designers is becoming increas- ingly abstract, shifting from making tangi- bles to making intangibles.
* As a response, designers continue former work practices of making and using artifacts.
* Making and using artifacts gives them emotional comfort, a sense of control and helps them to differentiate from other occupations.
* Internal heterogeneity in occupation Service Design is heightening because of arrival designers with business back- ground
* Two communities are emerging among the designers, business designers and craft designers, who have different con- ceptions of ‘what they ought to do’
* Differences between the communities become clear in interactions with space, time and clients.
* To move their work forward despite dif- ferences in work approach, the designers develop temporary settlements.
* Creative workers can be seen as ‘cere- mony masters’ who facilitate liminality for their clients.
* Liminality is imbued with feelings of ambiguity, community and freedom.
* Creative workers facilitate liminality by ‘activating’ their clients to connect to other actors and to experiment with new tech- nologies. Activating clients calls for the ceremony masters to constantly ‘morph’ into different roles.
3.
(Re)Negoti- ating Service Design: Discovering the Occupa- tional Mandate in Intra-Oc- cupational Struggles
4.
Facilitating Liminality: Creative Workers as Ceremony Masters
Fjord, Design Firm, Spain.
How do members of an emergent and changing occupation define their occupational mandate?
Waag Society, Innovation Hub, The Netherlands
How do creative work- ers facilitate liminality for their clients?
Table 5.1
Summary of this Dissertation Research