Design Methods: ¨Rational and Formal Study¨

The Design Methods movement of the 1950s was the first modern effort to study design formally and systematically. At academies such as the Hochschule für Gestaltung at Ulm, for example, students studied design along with more traditional academic subjects.

The Design Methods movement brought together experts of disciplines for a rational, formal study of design. Systematic and Intuitive Methods in Engineering, Industrial Design, Architecture and Communication, the first Design Methods conference, was held in London in 1962. Significant works in the Design Methods movement included L. Bruce Archer´s Systematic Method for Designers(1965), J. Christopher Jones´s Design Methods: Seeds for Human Futures (1970,) and Nigel Cross's Design Methods Manual (1975.)