Decisive factors in the culture-oriented product development process in industrial design education

Abstract

Designers see culture as a starting point for designing meaningful products that appeal to users. Culture has a dynamic structure that is constantly affected by social changes. This research examines how socio-cultural factors are perceived, analysed and transferred by design students. The design process is aimed to identify the complex or challenging and on the contrary clearly understandable aspects. In the first stage of the research, the ideas of the established cultural images, culturally influential designs and designers who use culture as a starting point were determined through 24 industrial design students. The ideas of the students were asked about design and identity in a particular geographic area, they were also asked to explain their ideas about traditional forms and draw forms of them by sketches. The results are presented together with visual examples. The common points of how the culture-oriented design approach is used by designers in the product design process and the frequent mistakes, approaches and examples of projects in this process are revealed. Keywords: Keywords: Industrial design, education, material culture, design