This poster is part of a series created and published by the Delft Institute of Positive Design. The series aim to inspire designers and design students who aspire to develop their abilities to design for subjective wellbeing.
The poster visualises four main opportunities for design for well-being. Each opportunity is illustrated with four design examples in the domain of “waking up in the morning to go to work.” The four opportunities are organised with two distinctions: (1) Source of happiness: hedonism (seeking pleasure and comfort) versus eudaimonism (seeking purpose and self-realization); and (2) Design focus: product-focus (the aim is to redesign an existing product) versus context-focus (the aim is to design ‘something’ given a particular situation or activity).
Each opportunity represents two design directions: one that is problem-driven (with the intention to reduce existing sources of unhappiness), and one that is promise-driven (with the intention to introduce new sources of happiness).
Authors
Pieter Desmet (concept); Jort Nijhuis (concept & design)
Reference
Desmet, P.M.A. (2013). Design for Happiness; Beating the Hedonic Treadmill with Meaningful Activities. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Tip
Designed to be printed on A2 size.
Availability
The Design for Well-Being poster is available under the ‘Creative Commons community license,’ free-of-charge for non-commercial use.
Publication date
May 2013
