85502 Researching Design Histories
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · Spring 202685502 Overview
- University of Technology Sydney
- Spring 2026
- Arts and Humanities
- First-year Design Studies core subject
- Two coursework assessment tasks
What the subject is about
Researching Design Histories is one of two core first-year Design Studies subjects in the UTS School of Design, alongside Thinking through Design, and is required in the Fashion and Textiles, Product Design and Visual Communication Design programs.
- Assessed by A Weekly Response visual document and statement (35%) and a Research Project template with a five to seven minute presentation (65%).
- Hardest step Connecting concepts, events and artefacts rather than describing them; both rubrics reward analysis that goes beyond the examples given.
- Do first Choose your Assessment 1 lens early and read ahead if it is Week 4 or 5; for Assessment 2, pick two specific artefacts, one from a collection.
- Watch the rules Generative AI may not be used for research, new writing or diagrams in either task, and any permitted use must be disclosed.
How 85502 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Assessment task 1: Weekly Response (Weeks 2-5) | 35% | A 2D visual document (concept map or diagram, timeline, or informational poster) and a 300 to 400 word reflective statement with APA 7 references, on one of Weeks 2 to 5, submitted as one PDF |
| Assessment task 2: Research Project | 65% | Research Process Template on two design artefacts, submitted as a PDF, plus a 5 to 7 minute research-in-progress presentation in class in Week 11 or 12 |
Weights come from the two assessment briefs on Canvas: 35% for the Weekly Response and 65% for the Research Project. Both are marked with Canvas rubrics. The Weekly Topic Schedule and the Assessment 1 brief give 28 August 2026 at 23:59 as the Weekly Response due date, while its submission panel shows 31 August; the schedule gives 22 October 2026 for the Research Project written component, while its panel shows 23 October. Confirm the dates on Canvas. The subject says tutorial attendance is essential, and students who cannot keep up with attendance or assessment should talk to their tutor or the subject coordinator.
Assessment structure
Current 85502 dates
| Date | Item | Control |
|---|---|---|
| 28 August 2026, 23:59 | Assessment 1: Weekly Response due | End of Week 5 in the schedule and the brief; the Canvas submission panel shows 31 August. |
| 21 to 25 September 2026 | StuVac | The schedule suggests using the break to select your artefacts and gather resources. |
| 12 October 2026 | Assessment 2 presentations begin | Monday of Week 11, in your studio; the second group presents on Monday 19 October in Week 12. |
| 22 October 2026 | Research Project template due | End of Week 12 in the schedule; the Canvas submission panel shows 23 October, 23:59. |
Dates are as published in the Weekly Topic Schedule and the two assessment pages for the Spring 2026 offering. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.
What 85502 covers
85502 runs across the Spring 2026 weeks as a series of lectures, each using one theme as a lens on design history, paired with tutorials that each teach a core academic or design criticism skill. Weeks 2 to 5 supply the four lenses for the Weekly Response; Weeks 6 to 12 supply the themes for the Research Project on two artefacts.
This guide follows that order, one chapter per week, and ends with a chapter on the research project itself.
Introduction to Design Histories
design in its contexts, making the familiar strange, Fry and Jackson on Australian design, critical reading and APA 7 (Week 1)Design inside its contexts
The opening week treats design as something that both emerges from and operates within historical, social, cultural, political and economic forces.
- Design as entangled in historical contexts
- Making the familiar strange again
- Fry (1988) and the claim about Australian design
- Jackson (2006) and national design myths
- Critical reading questions for any text
- APA 7 in-text citation basics
Design and Labour: Automation and Deskilling
work and technology, capitalism and surplus value, automation, deskilling, Luddism, labour concept maps (Week 2)Work as a lens
Week 2 reads design through work: paid and unpaid labour, and the technologies that organise it.
- Work and technology as a lens on design
- Capitalism: production for profit and wage labour
- Surplus value and who keeps it
- Automation and deskilling
- Luddism and the 1811 rising
- Mapping labour and ownership in one object
Feminism and the Gendering of Design
gendered objects, waves of feminism, material feminists, the Frigidaire G2, CCOW and SIFT (Week 3)Design is gendered
Week 3 shows how forms, meanings and symbols carry gendered values, and how design history has been told through ideas of men’s work, women’s work and consumption.
Beyond recovery
Feminist design history recovers overlooked women designers but also re-evaluates design’s role in perpetuating or challenging inequality.
Two case studies
The lecture uses the Frigidaire G2 refrigerator of 1981 and the Apple II computer to show recognition, co-option and gender norms at work, and the tutorial practises evaluating sources with CCOW and SIFT.
Why it matters
A feminist lens works on almost any artefact, because nearly every object assumes a user and a division of work.
- Feminism as equality and structural power
- The four waves as a contested shorthand
- Recovering women designers and re-evaluating the canon
- Material feminists and the kitchenless house
- The Frigidaire G2 and co-option
- Gender norms in early computer advertising
First Nations Design Histories
design before and after colonisation, truth-telling, Acknowledgement of Country, positioning, paraphrase and quotation (Week 4)A three-part journey
Week 4 follows First Nations design from before colonisation, through the hardship of colonisation and the resilience it demanded, to a present in which First Nations designers work for liberation and empowerment, across fashion, product design and visual communication.
Telling the history well
The tutorial frames the oldest continuous civilisation on Earth alongside a timeline of colonisation and rights milestones, and warns against presenting First Nations people as passive victims.
Skills for practice
Acknowledgements of Country, positioning, and APA 7 paraphrasing and quotation are taught together this week.
Why it matters
Design students will work on Country and with communities throughout their careers.
- Design before colonisation
- Colonisation, resilience and resourcefulness
- Contemporary First Nations design and empowerment
- Truth-telling without positioning people as victims
- Acknowledgement of Country and Welcome to Country
- Positioning and positionality statements
Access, Disability and Inclusive Design
medical, social and design models, the universal man, universal and inclusive design, formal and semiotic analysis (Week 5)Who is the world designed for?
Week 5 examines design through inclusion, accessibility and (dis)ability, tracing accessibility in design from the 1960s to now, and the myth of the “universal man” that shaped modern design.
Three models
The required introduction by Guffey and Williamson contrasts medical, social and design models of disability, and the lecture’s image of a 1970s curb-cut protest shows disabled people acting as designers and activists.
Formal and semiotic analysis
The tutorial introduces the two linked methods you will use again in Assessment 2. Every designer makes assumptions about bodies.
- Inclusion, accessibility and (dis)ability since the 1960s
- The myth of the universal man
- Medical, social and design models of disability
- Universal design and inclusive design
- Curb cuts as protest and as design
- Formal analysis of an artefact
Modernism and Its Myths
the dominant narrative, form follows function, a simplified and co-opted canon, museum catalogues (Week 6)The dominant story
Week 6 introduces modernism as usually told: a response to industrialisation and mass production that rejected ornament and historical styles and believed design could shape a better future.
Omissions and blind spots
The lecture challenges that canon, arguing that modernism’s radical ideas were simplified, consolidated and co-opted, and that “form follows function” mis-characterises them.
Starting Assessment 2
The tutorial introduces the research project and the museum catalogues you will use to find at least one of your two artefacts.
Why it matters
Modernism remains the default story many designers absorb.
- Historical conditions that shaped modernism
- The dominant narrative of modernism
- Form follows function as a mis-characterisation
- Simplified, consolidated and co-opted
- Textiles and women at the edge of the canon
- The untold story of modernism in Australia
Design in the Global South: Cuban Posters
world centres, the Global South, Cuban poster art, kitchens under socialism, database searching (Week 7)Beyond the world centres
Week 7 starts from the fact that designing has happened in every culture and region, even though histories placed design’s centres in Western Europe and North America.
The Global South
A required reading explains why the term became useful to academics, activists and politicians, and the lecture applies it to Latin America.
Cuban posters
The case study is poster art as a tool of the Cuban socialist revolution, influenced by Global South peers, pop art, local traditions and histories of Spanish and American colonialism.
- World centres and the wider history of design
- What the term Global South does
- Cuban posters and the socialist revolution
- Influences on Cuban visual culture
- Kitchens and everyday life under Cuban socialism
- Searching library databases well
Energy, Oil and Big History
Big History, oil and modern convenience, embodied energy, carbon lock-in, paragraph structure, AI and writing (Week 8)Big History meets modern history
Week 8 joins the deep time of geology and evolution to the recent history of designed goods, and the joint is oil, which the lecture pictures as ancient sunshine stored by marine life and plants.
Why oil shaped design
Energy dense, stable and portable, cheap oil secured by colonialism and military logistics underwrote modern conveniences, so leaving it needs changed habits and values as well as new technology.
Writing skills
The tutorial teaches paragraph structure and discusses generative AI and academic writing, including the energy and labour behind AI.
- Big History and deep time
- Oil as captured ancient sunlight
- Energy density, stability and portability
- Colonialism, logistics and cheap energy
- Embodied energy and carbon lock-in
- Paragraph structure
Technology, Determinism and Design
technological determinism, social shaping, artefacts with politics, transhumanism, presentation skills (Week 9)Is technology a force?
Week 9 asks whether technology is autonomous, a force that determines society, as naming historical periods after their machines can suggest.
Design as mediator
The lecture places design between the technical systems that make things and the habits of the people who use them, extending the Week 2 story of deskilling and Luddism.
Key ideas
Technological determinism, social shaping, transhumanism and human-technology relations are set against each other, and the tutorial turns to presentation skills for Assessment 2.
Why the debate matters
MacKenzie and Wajcman argue that believing technology simply happens to us breeds passivity: we learn to adapt rather than to shape.
- What counts as technology
- Technological determinism and its partial truth
- The social shaping of technology
- Do artefacts have politics?
- Transhumanism
- Design as mediator between production and consumption
Design and Nature: Histories of Sustainability
environmental design lineages, design for, with and about the environment, protest posters, Papanek (Week 10)Not a new concept
Week 10 argues that sustainability and environmentally conscious design have several historical lineages, with designers, and some artists and architects, designing for, with and about the environment.
Focus on the 1960s to 1990s
The lecture asks how environmental movements shaped design, what earlier examples teach us now, and what role design activism and visual communication played in protest.
An online week
Because of the Monday public holiday the lecture is pre-recorded, and studio time becomes final support for Assessment 2.
How to read the week
Treat each historical example as a test case.
- Historical lineages of environmental design
- Designing for, with and about the environment
- Environmental movements and design culture
- Design activism and protest posters
- Reading Papanek with a critical eye
- Histories of unsustainable design
Waste, Obsolescence and Repair
the history of waste, planned and systemic obsolescence, packaging, recycling critiqued, repair and reuse (Week 11)History from the perspective of waste
Week 11 shows design history changing when seen through waste and disposal, from waste’s short history to its rapid growth in the modern capitalist era.
Systemic waste
The lecture covers planned and systemic obsolescence, product longevity and packaging, and how fashion, technological change and capitalism fuel cycles of consumption and disposal.
- The short history of waste
- Planned and systemic obsolescence
- Packaging and product longevity
- Why recycling is a flawed solution
- Repair and reuse, past and present
- Plastiglomerate as a present-day artefact
Researching Two Artefacts: Analysis and Argument
the Research Process Template, sources and annotations, building a case, rubric, presentation (Assessment 2)The research project
Assessment 2 asks you to research two design artefacts or systems, place them in historical context, connect them through concepts, and present the work both in writing and in a five to seven minute talk.
The template
Part 1 prepares in point form: the artefacts, six sources, a formal and semiotic brainstorm, historical contexts and connecting themes.
- Choosing two artefacts, one from a collection
- Finding and annotating six good sources
- Formal and semiotic brainstorm
- Contexts of design, making and use
- Building a case that connects the artefacts
- The closing reflection
Its starting point is that history is essential to understanding the designed world today.
A designer who knows historical examples and ideas argues more persuasively and chooses more responsibly when deciding what to make and how.
How the weeks build
Each lecture takes one theme as a lens on design history: labour, feminism, First Nations design, access, modernism, the Global South, energy, technology, nature and waste.
Each tutorial teaches a core academic or design criticism skill, from critical reading and APA 7 referencing to concept mapping, source evaluation, positioning, formal and semiotic analysis, museum catalogue research, database searching, paragraph writing and presentations.
How you are assessed
Two coursework tasks make up the mark.
The Weekly Response, worth 35%, is a 2D visual document and a 300 to 400 word reflective statement on one lens from Weeks 2 to 5. The Research Project, worth 65%, is a written Research Process Template on two design artefacts, at least one from a museum, archive or library collection, plus a five to seven minute presentation in Week 11 or 12.
What makes it hard
The difficulty is analytical rather than technical.
Both rubrics reward connecting concepts, events and artefacts rather than describing them, and the highest bands ask you to go beyond the examples given in lectures and readings. Generative AI may not be used for research, new writing or diagrams in either task, so the thinking has to be yours.
Worked example · free
Map the labour in a pair of sneakers
- 1Extraction and processing: rubber, cotton and synthetic materials are produced by farm, plantation and chemical workers.
- 1Production: factory workers cut, stitch and glue the shoes, often far from where they are designed.
- 1Distribution and retail: shipping, warehouse and shop workers move and sell them, managed by logistics software.
- 1Unpaid work: the buyer researches, travels, and later disposes of the shoes, labour usually missing from maps.
- 1Ownership: the brand and its suppliers own the factories, designs and software; the people making the shoes own neither tools nor product, the wage labour at the heart of Stanford’s definition of capitalism.
Key terms
- Design history
- The study of designed things, systems and practices in their historical contexts, from production and use to waste.
- Concept map
- A diagram that shows concepts as nodes and labels the relationship on each link between them.
- Reflective statement
- A short piece of first-person writing that explains and justifies the choices behind a piece of work.
- Deskilling
- Reorganising work so a trade skill is no longer needed, often through new machines.
- Surplus value
- The value workers produce beyond their wages, kept by the owner as profit.
- Co-option
- Taking up the language of a movement to serve commercial or institutional ends.
- Positionality
- The position a person speaks from, shaped by background, community and place.
- Social model of disability
- The view that disability is produced by social barriers, policies and institutions.
- Formal analysis
- Close description of an artefact’s visible qualities, materials, function and production.
- Semiotic analysis
- Reading what an artefact signifies culturally and symbolically, and for whom.
- Technological determinism
- The view that technology develops by its own logic and then shapes society.
- Embodied energy
- The energy used to extract, make and transport a thing before it is used.
- Planned obsolescence
- Designing or marketing products to be replaced sooner than necessary.
- Global South
- A term for regions outside the historic centres of economic and political power.
85502 FAQ
How is Researching Design Histories assessed?
By two coursework tasks. Assessment 1, the Weekly Response, is worth 35%: a 2D visual document with a 300 to 400 word reflective statement on one lens from Weeks 2 to 5. Assessment 2, the Research Project, is worth 65%: a Research Process Template on two design artefacts and a five to seven minute presentation.
What can the Assessment 1 visual document be?
The brief allows a concept map or diagram, a timeline, or an informational poster, made digitally or by hand. It should show how the key ideas, concepts, historical events and artefacts of your chosen week interconnect. Markers look for clarity of communication rather than graphic design finesse, and generic templates should be avoided.
Which weeks can I choose for the Weekly Response?
One of four lenses: Design and Labour in Week 2, Design and Feminism in Week 3, Design and First Nations in Week 4, or Design and Access in Week 5, which covers disability and accessibility. The brief strongly recommends reading ahead early on Canvas if you choose Week 4 or Week 5.
What artefacts can I research for Assessment 2?
Two design artefacts or systems, which can be 2D, 3D or a designed system. At least one must come from a museum, archive or library collection, subject to tutor approval; the other can be anything, including an everyday object. Choose them so you can bring in a theme from at least one Weeks 6 to 12 lecture or reading.
Can I use generative AI in Researching Design Histories?
Only in limited ways. Both briefs say AI may not be used as a research source, to create new writing, or to generate or lay out timelines, concept maps or diagrams. Tools that tidy spelling and grammar are allowed, and any permitted use must be disclosed in an AI-use statement naming the tool and what it did.
What referencing style does the subject use?
APA 7, for in-text citations, the reference list and image sources. Direct quotations need a page or paragraph number, and the UTS Library APA guide treats quotations of 40 words or more as block quotations. The Week 1 and Week 4 tutorials teach the basics and paraphrasing, and both rubrics assess referencing.
How long is the Assessment 2 presentation and when is it?
Five to seven minutes, with seven as the maximum, presented in class on the Monday of Week 11 or Week 12 as your tutor assigns by Week 8 or 9. It is research in progress, so it comes before the written template is due, but it should show advanced development. Slides are optional.
Questions students ask in each 85502 chapter
- What does ‘make it strange again’ mean in this subject?
- It means taking objects, histories and everyday things you think you understand and looking closely at the power, materials, production, technologies and environments behind them. A familiar object such as a clothes line or a sewage cart becomes a way into questions about work, health, identity and who decides what counts as design. Chapter 01 · Introduction to Design Histories
- What is the difference between automation and deskilling?
- Automation is a machine or software taking over a task. Deskilling is what that change does to the worker: a trade skill stops being needed. Stein’s study of printing shows computerisation doing both, making hard-won skills redundant and weakening printing unions. Chapter 02 · Design and Labour: Automation and Deskilling
- What does it mean to say design is gendered?
- It means objects, images and spaces carry assumptions about men and women in their form, symbolism and use. The Week 3 lecture uses the refrigerator to show this, and the slides add early computers, whose design and advertising followed traditional gender norms. Chapter 03 · Feminism and the Gendering of Design
- What is the difference between an Acknowledgement and a Welcome to Country?
- An Acknowledgement of Country can be given by anyone, including non-Indigenous people, to recognise the Traditional Custodians of the land. A Welcome to Country is given by a Traditional Owner or Custodian of that Country to welcome visitors. The Week 4 tutorial asks you to discuss both and practise writing an Acknowledgement. Chapter 04 · First Nations Design Histories
- What is the universal man in design history?
- It is the myth of a single standard body that much modern design assumed. The Week 5 lecture introduces it and its lasting influence on design practice, and notes it prepares the ground for the modernism lecture in Week 6. Designing for one imagined average leaves many people at the edges. Chapter 05 · Access, Disability and Inclusive Design
- Why does the lecture call form follows function a mis-characterisation?
- Because the designers moved towards abstraction, usefulness and attention to material and form for reasons that the slogan squeezes into four words. The lecture treats the idiom as a popular simplification of a more complex and contested movement, not as an accurate summary of what designers did. Chapter 06 · Modernism and Its Myths
- Why study Cuban posters in a design history subject?
- Because they show design developing outside the world centres of capitalism. The Week 7 lecture describes Cuban graphic designers and other creative workers developing whole families of posters in the service of the socialist revolution, drawing on Global South peers, pop art, local traditions and colonial histories. Chapter 07 · Design in the Global South: Cuban Posters
- What is Big History and why is it in a design subject?
- Big History is history told on the scale of geology and evolution. The Week 8 lecture links it to the modern history of designed goods through oil, which it pictures as ancient sunshine stored up by marine life and plants. That link shows how deeply modern design depends on fossil energy. Chapter 08 · Energy, Oil and Big History
- What is technological determinism?
- It is the common view that technologies change because of scientific advance or their own logic and then have effects on society. MacKenzie and Wajcman say it contains a partial truth, since technology matters to how we live together, but is mistaken as a theory of technology because it treats technical change as arriving from outside society. Chapter 09 · Technology, Determinism and Design
- Is sustainable design a recent idea?
- No. The Week 10 lecture argues that sustainability and environmentally conscious design have several historical lineages, and it focuses on the 1960s to the 1990s. Its required reading, Taylor’s brief history of unsustainable design, looks back on that history from 2017. Chapter 10 · Design and Nature: Histories of Sustainability
- Why does the Week 11 lecture criticise recycling?
- Because it treats recycling as a flawed solution within the systems that produce waste: it returns only part of the material and leaves the cycle of consumption and disposal running. The lecture sets repair and reuse against it as ways of extending product lifetimes and reducing waste. Chapter 11 · Waste, Obsolescence and Repair
- How many artefacts do I need for Assessment 2, and where can they come from?
- Two. They can be 2D, 3D or a designed system. At least one must come from a museum, archive or library collection, subject to your tutor’s approval; the other can be anything, including an everyday object. Choose them so you can use themes from at least one Weeks 6 to 12 lecture or reading. Chapter 12 · Researching Two Artefacts: Analysis and Argument
How to prepare for the assessments
Treat Researching Design Histories as a subject in which every week gives you a lens and a skill, and practise both on objects of your own. After each lecture, write three lines in your journal: the core concept, one artefact the lecture used, and one artefact of your own that the lens explains. Add the week’s key terms to a running glossary in your own words.
For Assessment 1, choose your lens early, read beyond the required texts, and draft the visual document twice, because the tutorials treat iteration as part of the method; then write the reflective statement to justify each layout decision rather than describe the picture.
For Assessment 2, choose two specific, named artefacts by Week 7, use museum catalogues and the UTS Library rather than Wikipedia or AI, and fill in Part 1 of the template before writing any paragraph. Rehearse the presentation against a timer. When you are stuck on how a concept applies, ask Sia to explain the idea a different way and quiz you on it; it can help you understand, but the research and writing must be your own.
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