Apropos of a continuing discussion between Nick and myself about the nature of design here at Blogless, it seems almost compulsory to mention Jess McMullin's Design Maturity Model.

Jess contends that both corporations and designers are at different levels of design maturity, ranging from No Conscious Design — where "design value isn't recognized" — to Framing, where "design redefines the challenges facing the organization." (Here's a PDF of the DMM, for your inspecting pleasure).

In kindly keeping with what we've already understood as part of a "natural" paradigm for modern design-thinker types, Style (making things look better) constitutes the second-to-lowest stage of design enlightenment, followed by Form and Function (making things work better), and finally followed by Problem Solving en route to abstract corporate-strategic planning as design-nirvana, the aforementioned Framing.

Even assuming the stability of Jess' five manifestations of design, (E.g.: Can we really say that most "style"-focused projects necessarily understand design as a "cosmetic afterthought"? Further, even if they do, don't products still need cosmetics?) there still seem to be some significant questions about the legitimacy (or, let's say the finality) of this arrangement.

To wit: First, why is one manifestation more valuable as a practice than the other (no explanations are offered), and second, why should any one manifestation be more valuable than the other?

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