Abstract
The experiential qualities of materials play an important role in how designed products are used, appreciated and understood. Materials with pronounced visual, auditory or haptic behaviors and temporal forms can lead to engaging, multisensory interactions. However, many designers, including textile designers, currently lack tools for directly shaping these end-user experiences at the sensory level, and for understanding material experience at an early prototyping stage. With a focus on the design of dimensional, shape-changing and otherwise structurally complex textiles, we present a set of design practices and a case study in building a collection of novel materials with highly specific sensory qualities that exist both digitally and physically. Two key additions to the typical textile design workflow presented in this paper are our use of the "generalized swatch", an initial prototype that prioritizes precise multisensory description; and our usage of procedural material design software to visualize these prototypes as digital materials that can convey sensory, tactile and temporal qualities. We used a program for creating physically-based rendering (PBR) materials, popular in visual effects and gaming, to design textiles directly from the generalized swatch, in many cases without a preexisting physical counterpart. The parametric nature of this software and our workflow supports a broader role for the textile swatch, as defining a space of possibilities rather than a single design. By operating in this uniquely constrained space, where sensoaesthetic properties are predefined but the material substance, structure, etc. that lead to those properties are not, textile designers can envision material interactions at an early prototype stage and generate novel ideas for sensorially rich materials.
Keywords
Textile design; Materials experience; Procedural design; Sensory design; Textile sensation and haptics
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/eksig2023.132
Citation
Meiklejohn, E., Devlin, F., Silverman, C.,and Ko, J.(2023) Feeling Fabrics: Prototyping Sensory Experiences with Textiles and Digital Materials, in Silvia Ferraris, Valentina Rognoli, Nithikul Nimkulrat (eds.), EKSIG 2023: From Abstractness to Concreteness – experiential knowledge and the role of prototypes in design research, 19–20 June 2023, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/eksig2023.132
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Feeling Fabrics: Prototyping Sensory Experiences with Textiles and Digital Materials
The experiential qualities of materials play an important role in how designed products are used, appreciated and understood. Materials with pronounced visual, auditory or haptic behaviors and temporal forms can lead to engaging, multisensory interactions. However, many designers, including textile designers, currently lack tools for directly shaping these end-user experiences at the sensory level, and for understanding material experience at an early prototyping stage. With a focus on the design of dimensional, shape-changing and otherwise structurally complex textiles, we present a set of design practices and a case study in building a collection of novel materials with highly specific sensory qualities that exist both digitally and physically. Two key additions to the typical textile design workflow presented in this paper are our use of the "generalized swatch", an initial prototype that prioritizes precise multisensory description; and our usage of procedural material design software to visualize these prototypes as digital materials that can convey sensory, tactile and temporal qualities. We used a program for creating physically-based rendering (PBR) materials, popular in visual effects and gaming, to design textiles directly from the generalized swatch, in many cases without a preexisting physical counterpart. The parametric nature of this software and our workflow supports a broader role for the textile swatch, as defining a space of possibilities rather than a single design. By operating in this uniquely constrained space, where sensoaesthetic properties are predefined but the material substance, structure, etc. that lead to those properties are not, textile designers can envision material interactions at an early prototype stage and generate novel ideas for sensorially rich materials.