Design Narrative

Abstract

The narrative vocation of design represents a crucial key for the interpretation of some contemporary cultural expressions such as making history, representing through different media, archiving and exhibiting. This essay explores narratives in three different “dimensions”: narrative as a scenario (that envisions new contexts, behaviours, uses, spaces); narrative as a tool (that creates new ways of triggering innovation), narrative as a process (that codifies methodologies dealing with complex issues). Narrative – be it implicit or explicit - is at the basis of all design interventions as a story is an authorising device, a tool able to systematise each element and direct it to a specific direction. Creating the strategies for a story as a design infrastructure means generating attention and stimulating memory, as narratives trigger curiosity and cognitive participation in the audience. Words and pictures are at the basis of imagination, as they design means for envisioning what is not there yet: conversations, dialogues, verbal and visual texts. Cognitive artefacts are media devices able to articulate a narrative repertoire and foster the process of innovation.