Projects and core values

Abstract

Premium products do not speak for themselves! We do! When we experience them. We give them meaning by putting the core values that the products exhibit in context. The brand values provide a bridge between customer values and the properties built into the product in the design project. In this sense the design of a premium product also has an organizing property by initiating the generation of discursive objects that relate project members to each other.

The `Premium' in a premium product means that the arguments for it are based in the values (not so much the costs) for its audience. The core values (of the brand or the company) that keep a social unit (the project) together have been forged in response to historical experience as principles behind successful strategies. Arguments that are based in such values are discursive in the sense that they are co-produced by the author and the reader of the design of the product.

The problem of every speaker is that he or she loses control over the meaning of his or her argument as soon as it is uttered. A communicative situation is established by the utterance and the hearers go to work making sense of it by putting it into the context of their choice. Speaker intentions may be ignored or may not be detectable. Misunderstanding (from the speaker's view) may follow. The speaker can control the sense making work by providing a strong narrative that becomes the preferred context used by hearers. A strong narrative invites to co-production by subjunctivity (Bruner) and implicature (Grice).