Selection processes in the design field

The field of design is still almost unexplored in academic research, even if its being on the edge between the commercial and the artistic world makes it an interesting field to research. This research aims to bring attention to this field, starting from a hole in academic research, which are selection processes and criteria. The opaqueness surrounding selection criteria is still significant, although studying the mechanisms of selection of a field allows the researcher to understand important elements characterising the field itself. This research of selection criteria is applied to the design field through a case study, that is the Dutch participation to the Milan Design Week. Therefore, the research question guiding this research is: how are Dutch designers selected for the Milan Design Week? To answer this research question, it was analysed the selection process of a government fund in the Netherlands, which aims to give grants to designers in order to participate to the Milan Design Week. The data analysed are applications and minutes of the meeting of this selection process, to which was applied qualitative content analysis. What emerged from this research are three different types of criteria: the pre-determined criteria, the underlying criteria and the invisible criteria. The pre-determined criteria are the criteria fixed by the fund, the underlying criteria are the ones that emerged directly from the analysis of this selection process, the invisible criteria are represented by all the silent factors influencing the selection. These different groups of criteria interact between each other, giving shape to the mechanism of selection as a whole. However, what also emerged from this research is that the mechanism of selection is in itself opaque, also for the ones performing it, namely selectors. Most of the elements of the selection emerged directly during the meeting and were not the outcome of some general principles or values pre-determined by the selectors. Together with the criteria, a general trend of design to go towards art emerged from the analysis, together with the influence of other disciplines on design, in particular sociology, technology and science.