Page 82 - Design meets Business:An Ethnographic Study of the Changing Work and Occupations of Creatives

70 Design Meets Business
[design tools] are sort of, I guess, dead now. We use them as tools for sto- rytelling now.”
Indeed, as this fragment suggests, we found that whereas design tools were previously key for the designers themselves, they were now used as a means to communicate insights to clients and help them trans- form their mindset.
Further, we found that designers adapted their former material prac- tices by making physical artifacts. While the practice of making proto- types was not new for the designers, they ways in which they made proto- types changed. Before, they were used to develop their prototypes in online environments such as in design programs called Invision or Proto.io. During our fieldwork, however, we saw that designers increasingly worked with their hands and used more traditional art supplies like pencils, papers and scissors. The strategy director of Fjord recognized this and told the fieldworker that artifacts “seem more important than ever” in design work. Similarly, another designer said: “even though we do digital, we need the physical to keep our feet on the ground”. As we illustrated in the beginning of this paper, the designers for example made physical artifacts like the board game Pensiopoly. Other examples include detailed illustrations on walls, design activities in posters and developing games for collaborative workshops with clients. In other words, we saw that the designers literally brought in tangibility in their increasingly intangible work.
Intrigued by these developments of the continuation and expansion of former work practices, in the next section we further explore why the designers responded in these ways. More specifically, we explore why the designers continued to make and use artifacts in design processes. Below we differentiate between three explanations: ‘creating an emotional connection with work’, ‘establishing a sense of control in ambiguous design processes’ and ‘differentiating from other occupations’.
2.4.2. Creating an emotional connection with work
To begin with, the designers made and used artifacts because it allowed them to emotionally connect with their work. In the field, the fieldworker frequently witnessed moments in which designers emphasized the impor- tance of “loving what you do”, for example the design director said:
“We design for love. People here like pixels more than their own families. For them it is all, everything.”