Abstract
Knowledge of materials is essential for designers in many regards. Materials affect how a product will be manufactured and how it will function, as well as the usability and personality of the product. However, existing materials are subject to ongoing changes in availability, processing methods, price and attributed meanings, and new materials are constantly being developed. Thus, designers continuously need to acquire new materials knowledge to be able to produce designs that utilise available material possibilities and achieve the desired user experiences. That makes it relevant to understand how this materials knowledge can be acquired. To provide designers and design educators with a structured basis for understanding materials knowledge acquisition, this paper proposes a framework that offers twelve distinct ways to acquire materials knowledge.
Keywords
Materials knowledge; consumer goods; industrial design; fashion design; materials knowledge acquisition
DOI
http://doi.org/10.21606/eksig2015.119
Citation
Haug, A.(2015) A Framework for Materials Knowledge Acquisition for Designers, in Bang, A. L., Buur, J., Lønne, I. A., Nimkulrat, N. (eds.), EKSIG 2015: Tangible Means – Experiential Knowledge Through Materials, 25–26 November 2015, Kolding, Denmark. https://doi.org/10.21606/eksig2015.119
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
A Framework for Materials Knowledge Acquisition for Designers
Knowledge of materials is essential for designers in many regards. Materials affect how a product will be manufactured and how it will function, as well as the usability and personality of the product. However, existing materials are subject to ongoing changes in availability, processing methods, price and attributed meanings, and new materials are constantly being developed. Thus, designers continuously need to acquire new materials knowledge to be able to produce designs that utilise available material possibilities and achieve the desired user experiences. That makes it relevant to understand how this materials knowledge can be acquired. To provide designers and design educators with a structured basis for understanding materials knowledge acquisition, this paper proposes a framework that offers twelve distinct ways to acquire materials knowledge.