ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the chronological trajectories of design and branding in diverse fora, applying more generalized revelations to understanding disability through the thematic crafts of visual, linguistic, and knowledge production. It discusses seminal trends in media history that inform the analysis of disability as designed and branded. Within the twentieth century, media for popular consumption have moved from singular to multi-dimensional, and from carefully crafted behind closed corporate doors to public participatory. Designing and branding of humans in media flow in large part from the capacity of each medium, as engineered or improvised, loquacious or articulate, static or dynamic. The chapter explains the theme of the medicalization model of disability, distinguishing it from the medical model, and suggesting that the term medical is a misnomer for understanding embodied disability designs and the actions engendered. It concludes with analysis of brand euphemism in the form of policed linguistc descriptors, assigning disability to bodies and then labeling the corpuses as devalued.
