Design Tactics. The design focus transition from the object to the subject

In the contemporary social-productive context the importance of an object’s technical and functional performance has now been lost because it has now become a message, a concept, and a meaning. Therefore, the relationship between design, production, and consumption is no longer a simple problem-solving activity but a comparison between specific cultural models. This has modified design activity, which now requires a different generative and creative action that passes from a known present to a possible future. The creative action has now become diffuse, and we can call it “design tactic”. Its aim is not an objective but a subjective quality perceived not only by the present society but, above all, by a future one. This signifies a passage from the creation of an object to the creation of a subject able to construct the meaning of human behaviour. According to this perspective; this paper proposes an interpretative model of the design / production / consumption relationship for an exchange of knowledge from companies to society by products. This paper is illustrated with an example of a project: the “On Air” project, conducted in collaboration with Elica, a leading company in the production of cooker-hoods.