Keisuke Takayasu is a professor of aesthetics at the Graduate School of Letters at Osaka University, where he teaches courses in art and design. Takayasu has worked mainly with the history of modern design, the aesthetics of craft and industrial products, and the theory of visual communication. His recent interests cover the ethics of social design, the aesthetics of critical design, and the practice of food design. Takayasu teaches Bachelor-, Master-, and PhD-level students and has published several articles on the aforementioned topics.

Social design is a field of design that gives priority to solving social problems rather than aiming to maximize profits. If in recent years, some designers have come to focus on creating social systems or relationships between people, rather than on making things, does this mean that designers will still make something aesthetic even if they stop making things look beautiful? My concern is the aesthetics of design that no longer makes things. I am trying to answer through aesthetics what aesthetic qualities are included in the state of well-being, and how designers can create such qualities?