Evaluating aesthetics in design: a phenomenological approach

The article proposes a conceptual framework for discussing, theorizing, analyzing and practically dealing with aesthetics in design. With the phenomenological theory of Maurice Merleau-Ponty as its point of departure, the article identifies two important aspects of aesthetics in design: an aesthetics of sensual relation and an aesthetics of communicative self-reflection. Following these concepts the article raises questions of dealing with design as a structure of sensual appearance, and of design as an act of communication that can contain an aesthetic coding in letting an idea or content of meaning be physically manifested and reflected in different ways. The article proposes a model for different kinds of aesthetic communication and, thus, in the concluding practical guidelines, argues for a more theoretically focused inclusion of aesthetic matters in the process of designing.