Understanding Design for Cultural Organizations Performance

Design is considered as the spinal process of all kinds of product development undertaken by for-profit or non-profit organizations. This paper brings design into the realm of cultural organizations-such as museums, galleries, art institutions, cultural centers or publishing houses- and examines how its deeper understanding could help improve their performance. A series of logical considerations and evident comparisons are established, in order to describe the way that cultural organizations could benefit by using design knowledge and design thinking. These include: a) since design is the central process of development of any product, cultural products development (like exhibitions, multimedia productions, digital archives, book series and others) could also be described from the perspective of the disciple of design; b) since cultural products are generally seen as “experiences” and “services”, the understanding of design disciplines such as “service design” and “experience design” could decisively help to create or improve them. Finally, the paper introduces design in the cultural sector, as a process of tangible and intangible product prefiguration, and as the channel that carries an acquired cultural experience.