Fourteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Google Designer Matías Duarte explains that, “unlike real paper, our digital material can expand and reform intelligently. Material has physical surfaces and edges. Seams and shadows provide meaning about what you can touch.” Morphology and esthetics are the basic components for a successful design language. How to define a form in design, underlies different methods, rules and proportional studies, as well as material characteristics and surface treatment. The maxim form follows function is a principle associated with twentieth-century modernist an object should primarily relate to its intended function or purpose. It has been influenced for decades the form giving decisions. The product was a hardware, it’s form was determined by the function and often by the dimensions of a mechanical core. But production, either industrial or craft, has changed; new technologies progressively invade the market using new materials, offering always higher performance, and higher speed for the appreciation of the user. And the world has become timelessly digital, everything is at the same time everywhere available. Design has become a process rather than a definition of a form, has become a service rather than a function. But the “traditional” values of design: morphology, aesthetics, semiotics and sensorial qualities still distinguish the discipline from other disciplines like (Software) Engineering, Mechatronics or Robotics. This paper investigates how these values still dominate the design process, and how educational models can drive the required change of knowledge for a new generation of designers.