Professor Paul Rodgers

Professor Rodgers has published more than 100 papers in book chapters, journals and conferences.  He sits on the Editorial Review Board of many international design conferences including the Design Research Society, Design Computing and Cognition, and Engineering and Product Design Education.  He is also a member of the Editorial Board of the International journal Design Studies.

Research Grants/ Funding Awards

- January 2009, P.A. RODGERS, Social Technology Systems Usage by Designers Pilot Study, Joint AHRC, EPSRC, ESRC INNOVATIVE MEDIA FOR A DIGITAL ECONOMY PROGRAMME, £1,500
- November 2007, P.A. RODGERS, AHRC ICT METHODS NETWORK PROGRAMME, “Product Designing Network”, £5,000
- March 2007, P.A. RODGERS and GLASS BOX, Design Fairground Project, 6 CITIES DESIGN FESTIVAL, EDINBURGH, £25,000 (FUNDED FOR MAY 18-22, 2007)
- May 2005, P.A. RODGERS, Flexible Product Design Provision, EUROPEAN SOCIAL FUND PROPOSAL, £185,000
- February 2004, P.A. RODGERS, “Inspiring Designers” Book Publication Assistance, THE CARNEGIE TRUST FOR SCOTLAND, £2000.
- July 1996 - February 1997, P.A. RODGERS, British Telecom Short-Term Fellowship Award, BRITISH TELECOM - PRODUCT AND SERVICES ENGINEERING - DESIGN & PERFORMANCE UNIT, £3000
- May 1994, P.A. RODGERS, Hong Kong Travel Grant, BRITISH COUNCIL (HONG KONG), £800

Exhibitions of Design Work

- May 2007 - Design Fairground Exhibition, 6 Cities Design Festival, Edinburgh
- September 2006 - Exhibition of “Every Day and Found Objects” Lights, Designers Block, London
- April 2006 - Exhibition of “Text-based” Furniture, The Lighthouse, Glasgow
- September 2005 - Exhibition of “Text-based” Furniture, Designers Block, London
- June 1995 - Exhibition of Wood and Metal Furniture, Nancy Smilie Galleries, Glasgow

As the problems of society are increasingly complex and interdependent, and they are not isolated to particular sectors or disciplines, what then are the implications for design practice, education and research?

So, the question I seek to explore and answer is how do designers best approach and address these increasingly complex world issues?  For example, what role can designers play in ensuring the health and wellbeing of people against a backdrop of diminishing resources?  Also, how do we educate student designers best to fit into increasingly dynamic and complex employment opportunities?

My main focus of interest is in studying the way designers work.  Designers’ creative processes have a massive effect on the quality of the products they create.  If designers wish to create improved designed products, spaces and services, then they must improve their own design processes.  Designers need to continually reflect and redesign not just their products but also the way they design.  That’s why studying the design process to know what designers do and how they do it, and to understand the creative processes involved and improve them will help designers become better designers.  In my studies of how designers work, I have adopted a mixed-methods approach including ethnography, semi-structured interviews, and cultural probes.

Another focus of my research work at present is on what might be accurately described as “hybrid creative practice”.  In recent years, we have seen fluid movements in, across, and beyond conventional creative disciplinary boundaries.  Moreover, economic shifts have altered the transformation of funding, royalty payments and employment patterns in creative practice, and technological developments in computing and manufacturing have provided creative practitioners with enormous flexibility in the way products, spaces and services are now created.  Against this backdrop, designers no longer fit into neat categories.  Rather they are, as Tony Dunne at the Royal College of Art has observed, a mixture of artists, engineers, entrepreneurs and anthropologists – hybrids.

Inspiring Designers - a major book on the “iconic influences” of successful designers throughout the world

(published by Black Dog Publishers, London in December 2004)
http://www.blackdogonline.com/all-books/inspiring-designers.html

Crossing Design Boundaries (Editor in Chief)

(published by Taylor and Francis, London in September 2005)
http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9780415391184/

The Little Book of Big Ideas Design

(published by A. & C. Black Publishers Ltd., London in June 2009)
http://www.acblack.com/visualarts/Books/details.aspx?isbn=9781408106303&title=+Design

Towards a New Disciplinary Framework for Contemporary Creative Design Practice
(with Tommy Dykes and Michael Smyth)

(published in CoDesign, 2009, 5(2), pp. 99-116.)
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/15710882.asp

Digital Blur: Creative Practice at the Boundaries of Architecture, Design and Art
(with Michael Smyth) 

(published by Libri Publishing, Oxford in April 2010)
http://www.libripublishing.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_book_info&products_id=44

Coming Soon...

Product Design
(with Alex Milton)

(to be published by Laurence King Publishers, London in Spring 2011)
http://www.laurenceking.com/home.htm

Full list available at Northumbria Research Link (NRL)

His current teaching interests include hybrid creative practice, experimental design research methodologies, design provocations, and design for public engagement.

Paul teaches across all levels across in the school from year 1 at undergraduate level through to the supervision of a number of PhD students.

Glass Box Design Collective

Founding member of the design collective Glass Box. An Edinburgh-based design group made up of eight individuals who bring a range of experiences and skills together from the traditional disciplines of furniture, exhibition, product, architecture, and multimedia design to their creative output. Glass Box have exhibited over the last couple of years at the London Design Festival (i.e. Designers Block 2005 and 2006), and at The Lighthouse (Scotland’s National Centre for Architecture and Design, 2006).

In additional to this, Paul is currently working with a number of creative practitioners including:Greyworld,Jason Bruges Studio,Troikaand HeHe. He is also collaborating withThermoFisherwith the School of Design MA students on the design and development of novel CPR products and packaging.