A taste for practices: Unrepressing style in design thinking

The current vogue for design in management discourses results in abstractions of the design process that repress the role of aesthetic judgments. This paper offers an explanation as to why design-as-styling is being neglected or concealed, and then explains what is at stake. It theorizes that a key aspect of the agency of designing, as the creation of artifacts to facilitate activities, lies in this taste literacy of designers. The framework for the argument of this paper is Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of ‘habitus’ and the notion of ‘style’ as proposed by Fernando Flores and his coauthors. The paper argues that designers are hermeneutists of proximal taste regimes, for the possibilities of new styles of action.

► Design thinking promotions and cognitive research of designing de-emphasize style. ► Bourdieu’s work can link judgments of style and the designing of useful artifacts. ► Designers, as expert innovators, operate within discernments of style. ► Usability of designed artifacts depends upon coherence with taste regimes of users. ► Research on style judgments in designing can explain how tools like personas work.