Fourteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Culture has a significant impact on the products. If a designer wants to create a product, first of all s/he needs to know the target people and the environment. Knowledge related to cultural elements and traditions makes the design process possible to begin one step ahead. How a product design can satisfy cultural needs in the modern life is the main question of that study. In this study, tea is interpreted as a cultural element of Turkey, like many different countries all over the world. Since tea has a strong power for Turkish culture, meaning of teapots play an important role for the culture, as well. The importance of tea, the role of teapots and a design process of a teapot is explained. This study focuses decisions, steps and process of a design study through a new modern teapot product, Teasy, which is designed for the present study. The selection of the product was done according to following criteria: tea has the power to create its own culture and the teapot can carry and symbolize strong cultural impacts. In the study, product design stages are defined from the beginning to the end product. Existing problems and potential users of the product, design considerations, materials, mechanism, and connection details of the product are also analyzed through the product.