«Design has entered a golden age. Lauded in the popular press, design and designers are becoming household names. Major museum exhibitions explore design’s relevance to daily life while bringing new designs to the general public’s attention. A flurry of schools with innovative approaches to the field are just beginning to make an impact, launching the careers of a generation of exciting new designers.
The assessments sound familiar, but the year in question is 1950, not 2009. [...] Almost sixty years later, industry leaders are announcing “the new Golden Age of design”. [...]»

This paragraph is taken from the editorial written by Elizabeth Guffey for the first issue of “Design and Culture“, the new official journal of the Design Studies Forum. From its very start, it tells much of the aims and approaches of the journal, as well as about the current situation of design culture or — better — of the cultures of design, in an epoch when «a multiplicity of voices shapes our view of design and its discourse today.» And «Design and Culture seeks critical frameworks that force reflection on what design means in contemporary culture.»
No surprise, then, ample space is given to reviews, not only of publications but also of exhibitions and all other venues (wwweb included) that, as Guffey concludes, «probe the frontiers of what design is today and will be tomorrow.»
“Design and Culture” indeed promises to be a great resource to study how representations and discourses on design are shaped today.

The first issue is available online, at no charge.