Deviant Design: The Ad Hoc, the Illicit, the Controversial

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Craig Martin addresses the transgressive or deviant aspects of design: design that straddles the divide between the licit and illicit, the legal and illegal, in a variety of ways. Martin argues that design is not necessarily for the social good, but that it is immersed in the social realm in all its contradictions and confusions. Through a series of case studies he explores a wide range of social practices that employ illicit forms of design thinking, including: early computer hacking and present-day hacker culture in which everyday objects are repurposed and deliberately misused; the cultures of reproduction, counterfeit and pirated versions of classic and luxury designs; and the use of material practices by smugglers to conceal drugs within consumer goods and luggage. Deviant Design contends that these amateur and illicit practices challenge the normative idea of the professional designer or maker. Rather than being reliant on the services of institutionalized design professionals, the adhocist practitioner displays forms of innovative design knowledge in understanding how artefacts have an inherent potential to be misused or repurposed.

Reviews

In Deviant Design, Craig Martin steps away from the high street to explore an ever-changing shadow world of knock-off products and DIY cities, where counterfeit goods, unregulated hacks and illicit innovations overlap to shape everyday life for billions. A timely and refreshing approach. -- Geoff Manaugh, writer and author of A Burglars Guide to the City (2016)
"I look awry at design", says Craig Martin. Indeed. This book presents design as we have never seen it before, focusing on deviant and illicit practices that make part of contemporary social and economic life. The author shows how the potential of the illicit allows us to appreciate the radical ways of looking at things, processes, practices and systems. -- Constantin Boym, Chair of Industrial Design, Pratt Institute, USA

Author Bio

Craig Martin is Reader in Design Studies in the School of Design at the University of Edinburgh, UK, where he teaches on the postgraduate Design for Change programme. He is the author of Deviant Design (Bloomsbury, 2022), Shipping Container (Bloomsbury, 2016) and co-editor, with J. Rugg, of Spatialities (2011).