Seventeenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

The sources of design inspiration can be socio-cultural elements and concepts in the creative processes. While metaphors and analogies enrich concepts, they can be powerful tools for designers in developing new products. When we examine products made by these methods, designers can combine many cultural, traditional and belief structures with the user and benefit from creating the product’s shape. In this study, we want to discuss the role of socio-cultural influence on the industrial design process and user’s perspective by comparing “Sufi” products in Turkey. For this reason, we focus on four products designed by faith-shaped inspiration and produced industrially through analogy and metaphor approaches. First, we identified potential users by classifying the products using these two design methods. Then, we presented these products to potential users as a set that includes the images of the products, the conceptual words and images, product stories and templates where users can write their approaches. As a result of the mini-workshops, we compared designers’ analogies or metaphors and users’ perspectives through this set. In addition, we observed how the same socio-cultural element inspired the designer and how this inspiration reflected on the user through a product. With this set, we anticipate increasing the interaction of designers and users with products designed with analogy and metaphor methods in creative design processes.