A Sense of Design: The Embedded Motives of Nature, Culture, and Future

To identify the meaning of the advanced design of the twenty-first century, this paper extracts embedded senses—nature, culture, and future—that activate design in society. To identify nature-related social motives that challenge design from a deeply emotional level, sustainability regarding extinct animals is first considered from a perspective that considers the whole environment. Second, the sense of culture is discussed in connection with designed products including abstract paintings. This shows the paradox of the self-organization system between humans and products. Openness is identified as the social motive from a cultural perspective. Third, a socially innovative design perspective is used to point out future subjects. This aspect shows reasons for the expectations of the deep design thinker who leads design discourse into social innovation from an ethical viewpoint, which are social motives for the sense of future. A discussion of these three aspects is used to determine the vital structure of the new meaning of design. Based on the discussion, characteristics of design creativity are presented while the role of academics in advanced design is explored.