Análise quantitativa da ocorrência de imagens de produtos na bibliografia de design para verificação de fidedignidade do conjunto destas imagens como representação do campo de atividade do design de produto / A quantitative analysis of design products images apearing in design literature, verifiyng if they constitute the true picture of the field of product design

Frank Anthony Barral Dodd

Since, presently, there is no consensus with regard to various definitions of the concepts of \"design\" and \"product design\", the boundaries of the product designers\ field are perceived and shaped, to a great extent, by visual examples supplied by books, magazines and newspapers that are accessible to the general public, as well as to students, designers, and to those in any way connected to the design area. Initial research conducted before this one showed that in illustrated design publications, certain design products were presented in an excessive way, while others barely appeared, a situation that could reach the point of no representation at all of even familiar or common products. The present study is meant to measure, therefore, in an objective way, the lack of balance in the presentation of products in the design bibliography, by counting pictures of the objects in design books. Simultaneously with thepicture counting, an effort was made while using different sources of information to clearly identify situations of strong demand for product designer skills in everyday life of contemporary societies. These demands, at the end of this study, pointed towards a much broader and objective spectrum of the field of design, which permitted, by comparison, checking how true to reality was the portrait of product design presented by the counting of pictures. In the first part of this research, an extensive counting of design products was done, taking into consideration in the bibliography the way in which they were presented. This bibliography was selected after clear criteria of choice were established. With the purpose of counting products in an organized way, categories were established where each object would fit, depending upon its particular characteristics. The results of the counting were translated to a table and several graphs, which allowed for making numerical comparisons (digital) or visual comparisons (analogical) between several product categories, in general, and between data in several books, several product categories in the same book, and most importantly, the results allow for comparing the numbers of the counting to real needs that can be answered by product design. The real life situation data is supportedby official numbers. 9 The analysis thus conducted, in fact, led to the conclusion that the usual interpretation concerning the nature and limits of the field of design suffered from severe distortion. Additionally, the examination of design books revealed a certain bias in image selection, and this is taken as the contemporary model of what design should be and tends to be copied by other similar books. Therefore, this distortion may understandably lead to undesirable effects on potential customers\ understanding about what the meaning of design is. The same misunderstanding may negatively affect the way the subject is perceivedby students, designers, teachers, professionals working in similar areas and also by those who are responsible for shaping political decisions concerning design: they get in touch with only a partial reality of the field of product design, a reality that suffers mediation and filtering of editorial decisions that decide which is the real and possible spectrum of the design field, oriented as they are by a reductionist emphasis.

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