Pretense Design: Surface over Substance

摘要

Danish designer Per Mollerup is at his best when he writes straightforwardly, as when he defines the central point of Pretense Design: "Pretense design pretends to be something it is not .... All thinking builds on concepts; design thinking needs the concept of pretense design. We think much more clearly about the pretense design category when it has a name" (p. 15).The chapter "Object Language" outlines the author's analysis of pretense design, "which in some way or another misrepresents its true nature in order to impress somebody" (p. 56). He becomes uncharacteristically entangled in a maze of seven dimensions: truth-bending levels ("the truth edited, the truth on standby, and the truth suspended"), objectives, modes, perceptibility, roles, communication elements, and meanings. His several tables help show relationships between dimensions but also suggest that the whole scheme is convoluted.