“Kansei design”: in search of a “poetic sense”

The article is devoted to understanding the design approach, invented in the early 2010s by the French designer-researcher P. Levy – “kansei design”. Following the researcher, the authors of the article consider “kansei design” as a direction focused on the development of a designer's special sensitivity (Japanese “kansei”). Since the design of kansei was formed in Japan, it turned out to be associated with the Japanese aesthetic tradition. However, due to the fact that this approach increases the designer's demands on product quality, suggesting more subtle work with meanings, the authors of the article see the relevance of this approach for the development of Russian design. The purpose of the research is to reveal the potential of the concept of “kansei design” in domestic design practice. The methodological basis of the research consists of: the method of problem statement, definition of the concept, formulation of the concept, design experiment, interpretation of experimental results. Summarizing the ideas of P. Levy, who is inspired by the design approach of the Japanese company Muji, and Kenya Hara, the art director of the Muji company itself, the authors of the article consider kansei design as a direction that involves “nurturing the sensitivity” of both the designer and the consumer. This “nurturing of sensitivity” increases the designer's attention to the experience of interacting with a thing and, through this, opens up new opportunities for creating hidden meanings of a product that are revealed to the consumer at some point in time, like a poetic work. According to the authors of the study, this approach opposes the desire for short-term benefits of market pragmatism and is therefore able to fit into the Russian tradition of socially oriented design, which, in addition to commercial tasks, has always had a super-task of human development.