Today design is not merely a problem which deals with a special form of commercial goods or other visible objects. It is in fact impossible to find out realms and experiences of life that have nothing to do with design. How can design be elucidated philosophically? This article starts from the consciousness of philosophical and aesthetic reflection on the various phenomena of contemporary design as a whole. In the first preparing step it examines theoretical significance of two commonly renowned concepts, the beautiful and the artificial, that seem to enable us to connect aesthetic thinking with design research. They, however, will be proved to be unable to deepen both aesthetic reflection and design studies. Then I move to make clear how wide-ranging changes the modern world and the modern subject underwent since the mid-19th century. The special attention should be laid on remarkable features like acceleration of movement, subversion of traditional ontological hierarchy, abstractness as mode of relation to the world, liquidation of historic continuity, contingency as fundamental category of human existence, melancholy subject and mass media as historic condition of human experience. In consequence of these essential changes of world understanding and subjectivity, contemporary aesthetics could not help making a complete about-face from theory of artworks into a comprehensive and historical theory of perception. For my point of view this turn of contemporary aesthetics can also provide some productive theoretical impulses for design studies. Finally this article articulates some methodological attitudes design research of today must keep in mind, and tries to apply its tentative results to a concrete case of 'smart-phone' as specific lifestyle of modern subject.